Spirit Run, 10K and a new PR!

I had a chance to run a race in my backyard this weekend, so I decided to see how well I could do by running a 10K after my long run on Saturday.

I had a good rest Saturday night, so was excited to be running. My last 10K was the Dana Point Turkey Trot back on Thanksgiving. I woke up Sunday to a surprise - everything was wet outside! There was a heavy mist/drizzle out. So, I wrapped up in an extra layer and drove across the street to Fashion Island.

At the 10K start time, there was still a drizzle coming down, but this made the conditions perfect! Temperature was about 55, light cooling mist, and about a thousand runners. The only thing that would have made it perfect would have been chip timing instead of gun timing.

Since I had run 9 miles on Saturday, I wanted to make sure that I didn't kill myself. But, I did want to set a new PR for the distance. So, I used my trusty Virtual Partner and set a 10K distance and a 9:30 pace. This would put me at a 59 minute finish and would better my PR of 1:00.00 set at the Turkey Trot. The first thing I noticed about my run is how good I felt at this pace. I didn't want to repeat my normal "out too fast run out of gas", so I stuck to my pace. After about two miles, I decided that I would try to improve just a little and go out ahead of my virtual partner. Ever so slowly, I increased my pace. By mile 4 I was about an eighth of a mile ahead my my buddy, and still felt pretty good. I slowed a bit on the last uphill grade, but maintained by lead over VP. I knew that this meant that I would be setting a PR, because I still felt pretty good. At mile 5.5, I decided I would leave whatever I had left on the course. It was a great feeling to actually be passing people at this point as I increased my pace. It wasn't until later when I downloaded my Garmin that I saw that I was able to maintain a 7:45 pace for the last 3/4 of a mile. Wow! (at least for me!).

Needless to day, the day's events resulted in a new PR of 57.47 (gun time)! Yea! And, I still had enough to jog about 3/4 of the 5K course looking for my daughter and niece running that event. All in all a great day and a great weekend of running!