I just finished the Palo Alto Weekly Moonlight Run. It was my first 10km run, and the first of the planned races for this fall. It was quite exciting! Although my training went really well lately, I didn't have to big expectations, since my right glute was pretty tight since last night. A thorough warm-up took care of that though...No problems after about 1.4 miles of easy jogging and stretching...
The race started at 8:15PM under an almost full moon. It was amazing to have a race in the dark. I managed to get away from the crowds right in the beginning and settle to a good pace... Between mile 2 and 3 something weird happened: I was completely zoned out... I had a song in my head, and actually don't have any recollection of how I ran that section... At mile 5 I decided that no one would pass me anymore until the finish line... It worked :-) It was a hard 2km, but hey, who said it should be easy. It's pretty much as Dean Karnazes said in his presentation last night: "We can do more than we think we can." Anyway, I finished in (approx. taken with my Garmin) 47:33, a 7:27 pace. Definitely the fastest run of that duration I ever did. And also a PR (well it was my first 10k :-)).
Splits:
mile 1 - 7:36
mile 2 - 7:33 15:09
mile 3 - 7:26 22:35
mile 4 - 7:40 30:14
mile 5 - 7:36 37:50
mile 6 - 7:08 44:57
finish - 47:33
Update:
Official result: 47:29 22/149 AgeGroup 99/479 Gender 114/920 Overall
1 comment:
Nice race writeup! That was my first 10k too. The darkness made the race interesting for me. I had to completely sense the pace from my body instead of relying on visual clues.
BTW, last week, I finished reading "50/50: Secrets I Learned Running 50 Marathons in 50 Days -- and How You Too Can Achieve Super Endurance!" by Dean Karnazes and Matt Fitzgerald. I thoroughly enjoyed it. You may like it too as you train up for your marathon.
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