Devil Mountain 10K May 3, 2015
10K, 51:28, 8:18 pace
30-39 Div Place 92 of 331
Gender Place 23 of 167
Age Place 8 of 35 (F 30-39)
I set a goal time of 50 minutes or beating my PR of 50:34, but from the beginning of the race I just didn’t think it was going to happen. I had a terrible night’s sleep - was tossing and turning all night and my brain was just exploding with negative thoughts. I got out of bed at 5:30 took a shower to warm myself up (first time doing this), had ½ cup of coffee and a packet of oatmeal.
Read some running blogs and started downloading music, but then didn’t update anything so that was a waste of time but reading about how professional runners are acclimated to run at maximum effort and dig down deeper when the going gets tough. This made me realize I need to work on my mental game, have more confidence and not worry about failing or getting a DNF because it will help me improve and find my edge.
Since I didn’t run competitively in high school, I don’t ever push myself to the limit, but when I run across the finish line at breakneck speed (my speed anyway) I realize I still have plenty of gas in the tank. There’s no way I can make up the 20 second deficit in each mile I’ve already run - I need to up the pace consistently during the race.
There was a slight uphill grade for the first half of the race I wasn’t expecting. Also I shouldn’t be afraid to get a little closer to the front of the pack so I’m not weaving.
I felt I was at a good pace at the halfway point and was well on my way to making it under 50, so I thought, but with about 2km to go I slowed down a lot and started getting passed. I felt a brief faint feeling that really made me take it down a notch. I don’t think I trained long and hard enough since I just decided to run this race about 4 weeks ago. Next time I think should give myself at least 8 weeks training for a race.