The 10K I have been training for was this morning, and I am proud to say that I reached my goal of finishing in less than 1 hour. According to my watch, I did 59:26!!! That's the good news. I am very pleased with the race overall.
I think I didn't pace it as well as I might have. I went out fairly fast because of the downhill at the start (BIG downhill - I did the first mile in a very comfortable zone at a 9:04 pace!!!), and was able to maintain faster than my goal pace of 9:39 per mile very well until mile 4-5 (37:22 at mile 4, 48:00 at mile 5 - 10:23 for that mile, whereas the first 4 miles were an average pace of 9:20 per mile). Mile 5-6.2 was pretty ugly - i.e. pretty painful to keep the pace. It was a slight uphill for the last 0.8 mile or so, making it more painful. Despite the uphill, I actually was a bit faster than mile 4-5, at 11:26 for the last 1.2 (a 9:32 pace - pretty good), but IT REALLY HURT. My lungs were searing and my legs were almost jello. But I finished well.
The lesson seems to be that what seems like a comfortably fast pace at the start may not actually be a smart (i.e. slow enough) pace. Of course, the downhill confounds the race analysis a bit. I did plan on going a tad faster at the start because of the downhill, and so the race was according to plan, more or less, but I didn't anticipate how tired I'd feel after 4 miles of fast downhill.
Another issue - racewalking technique and form. Since this was not a judged race, I have no idea if I was really doing it right. I know there were times that I might have gotten bent knee calls if it was judged. I caught myself slipping into lazy form a few times. However, I think for the most part I did a good job of maintaining better form than I have in the past. I worked pretty hard to keep upright (not lean forward), push off my toes, and keep the ol' knees straight. Not sure if it was a total success, but that's OK. Each time I race I will get better.
Finally, a few thoughts on distance. I have to say that the 10K was MUCH more painful than the 5K. I really enjoyed the 5K race that I did at the end of June, whereas I can only say that I enjoyed the first 40 minutes of this race. Maybe I will concentrate on shorter races in the future? I seem to like them better. I might try to do some more 5Ks and maybe even a 3K. We'll see.
I think the next goal in my sights might be the Boise Women's Fitness Celebration 5K in September. Maybe... have to convince Loren that he wants to come with me and bring the kids for a weekend in beautiful Boise :). They have a 5K exhibition racewalk there, and it would be a blast to meet some of the good walkers from Idaho there.
2 comments:
Awesome time - awesome race Tammy. Like myself, you dissect a race to see where you get better - if you are ever 100% satisfied with your result, you will not have anything to work for and then you plateau and don't get any better. New folks to the sport often don't understand that. I am hoping that in Japan I will be able to hit your half marathon PB -- only 3 minutes off it - I love the fact you have given me someone and something concrete to shoot for.
Thank you for that and thank you for joining the facebook group. Will love to see your input and maybe someday you can take in one of our invasions
Allan
Wow, you made it - congratulations on making your goal, again! That must be pretty satisfying, even if it was a painful race. Hope you are getting some rest on vacation!
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