Run for Hospice 10K

Today was the annual 10K put on by my YMCA, and there are very few organized road races in the immediate area, so I feel like I really should support it each year. It was a beautiful day for it - nearly 60*F, even a little too warm for running! I ran this 10K course last year in 1:04:31, but this year I beat that by over a minute and finished in 1:03:24. Seven seconds slower than my 10K PR from last April! Soooooo close! But I'll still take a course record!

It was a scenic one-loop down a rural road into a nice waterfront neighborhood and back to the Y. It probably drew about 60 runners again this year. They gave out very cute full-color Santa shirts (bad photo at left) that I'll probably wear a lot!

Indulge me for a moment while I go over my splits:

Mile 1: Last year ~10:21, this year 9:58
Mile 2: Last year ~10:21, this year 10:07
Mile 3: Last year 10:40, this year 10:43
Mile 4: Last year 10:28, this year ~9:54
Mile 5: Last year 9:47, this year ~9:53
Mile 6: Last year 11:11, this year 11:15
Mile 6.2: Last year 1:41, this year 1:32

So I guess I started out a little faster this year. It was a small race and I was already last by the first quarter mile!! (There was a simultaneous 5K which I think attracted most of the slower-paced runners.) I stayed a little faster in the middle but finished up at about the same pace. I was eventually able to pass 5 other people during the race who slowed down while I stayed fairly steady (for the terrain). I still walked briefly at the 2 water stops in order to wet my whistle.

I even won a post-race door prize - woot, a t-shirt!!!! Yay! I won something!!

I was encouraged to run (for me) a pretty fast 10K just 3 weeks after my DNF during the run leg of Ironman Florida. That tells me that I don't think it was my run training that was so deficient as I thought - that part was probably up to the job. It was the previous two legs that wore me out!