Woohoo!! Now that was the confidence boost I needed. (And a race much more indicative of my fitness.) After two 5Ks earlier this spring that left me pretty disappointed and wondering if my speed work this past winter did anything, I got some redemption at the Trent Waldron 10K this past weekend and even walked away with a sizable new PR!
The day before this race, I honestly wasn’t sure how the race would go. I had done a couple of workouts that showed I was pretty fit. However, I had two 5Ks earlier this spring that did not go well despite good workouts prior to them. So while I had hopes it would go well, I didn’t want to set myself up for a big disappointment again.
When I woke up at 6:30a.m. on race morning and got out of bed, my legs felt good! This is not always the case for me. I often feel a little stiff getting out of bed or sometimes my muscles feel a little twingy. But that was not the case on Saturday morning. (I did do a mini taper going into this race to help freshen up my legs a bit.) My second sign that I might have a good day was when I was getting ready, I realized I wasn’t even nervous for the race, which is NOT the norm. Usually I have some anxiety about racing, which I think is okay to a certain extent as it lets my body know it’s about to compete. The last part of my morning where I thought, “I actually might have a good day,” was when I started my warm-up. Instead of my usually easy pace of 8:15 – 8:30 minutes/mile pace, I found myself easily running a 7:45 minutes/mile.
I spent about 30 minutes warming up as I waited for the race to start. Luckily the air was warm, so that helped my body warm up naturally. When it was go time, I positioned myself towards the front and got out with the leaders. I actually felt really good starting out. I always like to look at my watch shortly after starting in order to make sure I’m actually running the pace I want to since adrenaline is often pumping and too often I start out way too fast. I glanced down at my watch, half expecting to see a pace in the 6:30s but surprised myself when I saw 5:45 min/mile pace, and it felt easy! I knew I had to dial things WAY back otherwise I was going to run myself into the ground too soon. I dialed it back to a pace right around 6:10/6:15, which I knew would still be fast enough to get me a PR. The hard part about the trail that we run on is that it is very shaded and my GPS watch rarely picks up an accurate pace. I kept checking my watch seeing paces from 6:20 to 6:50, but I knew that wasn’t right based off my effort. I would often check it when there was a little bit more of a clearing to make sure I was indeed at that 6:10/6:15 pace that I wanted.
Luckily I had a couple people to run the first couple of miles with, which I really think helped me settle in to a little bit faster pace. Sadly, I couldn’t hang with them after a couple of miles, so I had to let them go. The course is an out-and-back route, and after the turnaround, I knew it was literally all downhill from there. There’s a slight incline on the way out, and then a slight decline on the on the way back, and I definitely felt the downward slope and often saw my pace dip below 6:00 min/mile pace, which blew my mind! That slight downhill didn’t necessarily show in my splits, but I definitely felt it while running.
With a couple miles to go, I was pretty confident I would PR so then at that point in time, it just became a race against the clock as to how much I could PR by. I was so happy to finally break 39 minutes as that was my goal last year.
Garmin splits:
Mile 1 – 6:11 min/mile pace
Mile 2 – 6:04
Mile 3 – 6:19
Mile 4 – 6:09
Mile 5 – 6:12
Mile 6 – 6:20
Mile 0.2 – 5:59 min/mi pace
Total time – 38:25
Average pace – 6:11 min/mile
I was so happy to set a new PR by 46 seconds! That’s a significant improvement for me at this point in my career, so I will be soaking that in for a bit.
It was definitely warmer this year (in the low 60s) and sunny, which might have been hot for some people, but the trail was shaded, and I didn’t feel too hot running.
I was just happy that I finally got a good race in after two very slow (for me) 5Ks earlier this spring. Just for comparison, my most recent 5K (the Cabin Fever Reliever), I ran at a pace of 6:18, and this race was double the distance, and I ran 7 seconds/mile faster! (And I did push myself in the 5K, just so we’re clear. Ha!) Like I said at the beginning, this race was much more in align with my fitness, so I was very happy to get that reassurance in a race setting this past weekend.
Congrats on a super speedy 10k PR and all of that fitness paying off! Can’t wait to see you nail some more PR’s to come this year!
Thank you!