That was NOT Easy: A Great Pumpkin Chase 10K Race Report

Today the GeekGrl and I went out and ran a local 10K called the Great Pumpkin Chase. Maybe a month or so before Javelina the GeekGrl announced that she wanted to make sure we ran this race because it was her first 10K and she wanted to see if she could PR. This was my first 10K as well and I thought I’d give getting a PR a try as well. However, based on my run yesterday I didn’t really think a PR was in me.

Yesterday was the second time I ran since the Javelina 100K. My first run was an easy 4.2 mile loop in the foothills behind my house at an 11:50 minute per mile pace. Yesterday I headed out for a 10.3 mile run and ended up with an 8:58 minute per mile pace, pretty good but a far cry from what I needed and I just didn’t think my legs had a 10K PR in them.

This morning it was nice and cool and having run the course before I knew it was a pancake flat double loop lollypop-shaped course. The GeekGrl and I showed up about 40 minutes early so I headed out for a couple easy miles to warm up, as I told the GeekGrl, “Just in case I decided to go for it.”

The race started promptly at 9:00 a.m. and I took off at what felt like a pretty comfortable pace. After a couple blocks I looked at my Garmin and I was running a 6:40 pace. I knew I needed to slow down immediately but I was really glad that I could actually move my legs fast enough to hit that pace. After I slowed a bit the small lead group continued to pull ahead then there was a small group of three and then there was me running alone ahead of a small string of people followed by the main pack.

I was running hard but smooth and when the first mile passed and I was at a 7:03 pace I knew I was going to try and hold on for a PR. I knew that a 7:03 pace would crush my 10K PR so I slowed a little bit more thinking that it was more likely that I would blow apart at that pace than actually crush my PR. I ran mile two in 7:15 and was starting to breathe a little too hard for that early in the race so I backed off just a little bit more and ran mile three in 7:24.

I thought that I had found a pace that I could hold that I would beat my PR but when I hit mile four I had dropped to a 7:30 pace and was starting to hurt. Mile five was a real struggle and by the end I had dropped to a 7:38 pace. Now overall I was still under my PR pace but I was starting to worry that I would miss it by a few seconds, something I did not want to do. I could not tell if I had sped up or not but I do know that I increased the pain I was feeling trying to speed up or at least hang on.

By the end of mile six I was rewarded with a 7:30 pace. Just .2 miles left and I was really struggling to avoid slowing down. There were a couple people finishing up the 5K that was going on at the same time and they were sprinting to the finish so I tried to pass them. Finally I was across the finish line in 45:25, a new 10K PR! My old 10K PR was 47:14 and has stood since November 2007. I also ended up winning second place in my age group. Love those local races!