Berbee Derby 10K race report

I had run this race last year in 57:50 (a 9:18/mile pace), so obviously I wanted to beat that (hopefully easy goal). My medium goal was to run it all under a 9:00 pace. And my ridiculously hard goal was to run it at an 8:26 pace, because race calculators would predict my next marathon time at 4:00. I pretty much knew that that wasn't going to happen, since 8 weeks ago I ran my marathon in 4:38. And I've taken it fairly easy since then.

So off we went. I didn't have too much of a strategy besides to run at whatever pace below 9:00 felt manageable. There were 1540 other people running the 10k, and I had lined up near the back, so the first mile was spent dodging people. The first mile felt good, and I think I did that in about 8:40. By the second mile, I could definitely feel that I was running harder than normal. But that's okay, it's a race! My 5k time was 26:54, which I was very happy about. I decided my goal at that point was 54:00.

I was still passing people, but I couldn't tell if I was maintaining/increasing my pace or if others were just slowing down more than me. Once I reached mile 5, I could hear the announcer, so even though I desperately wanted to slow down at that point, I knew it was almost over. And yet, it seemed so far away. I remembered that the final 1.2 miles seemed awfully difficult last year, and the same thing happened this year! There were a couple of decent hills that I remembered, so I thought I was in the clear after that. But then there was one more big one. My watch said 50:00, so I knew that if I met my goal, there was just 4 more minutes of this to go. I pushed. I passed an 11 year old boy who was running with his dad, begging him to slow down (they did for the hill, and then they still beat me by 20 seconds :)). Mile 6 came and I gave it all I had, which didn't end up being a sprint, but something faster than what I had been running. I had to dogde 5K walkers who were finishing at the same time, which I found very annoying. And then, I finished!

Final chip time: 54:19 (8:45 pace).

I'm pretty pleased with how I ran this race. Although I had positive splits, the second half's pace was just 10 seconds slower than the first half. Considering the hills and the strong headwind, I don't think that's too bad. AND, I'm happy that I had raced hard enough that I didn't have the energy to sprint the last bit to the end. Even in my marathon, I sprinted to the finish. I'm glad that I had given it my all during this race and had nothing left over. And it's pretty awesome that I shaved 3:30 off my time from last year. :) Next year's goal: sub-50:00.

I should also note that my non-running husband and younger brother ran the 5K in 24:31. Must be nice to be naturally gifted... :-P And I did not end up kicking my older brother's/SIL's butts, as they wussed out (slept in; they got in from Boston around 1am the night before).