Warning: Self-congratulatory post ahead.
The Atlanta Track Club has a number of races as a part of their Grand Prix, which all ATC members can go to, for free (it’s part of the membership fees). One of them is on January 1st, at 12:00 noon, and it’s called the Resolution 5/10k. You pick your race distance. It’s nicely placed later in the day for people to recover from the previous evening’s debauchery—at least partly.
I’ve been keeping in shape since the 1/2 marathon I ran in November, so I had high hopes of beating the 1 hour mark in the 10k, although my goal of sub 55:00 seemed unlikely because of the hangover I awoke with. I told Jenn on the drive to the race that I wasn’t going to beat 55:00 but that I’d be pissed if I didn’t break an hour.
Well, let’s just say that training for a 1/2 marathon makes excellent base training for shorter distances. I smoked my previous 10k PR by 18 minutes, coming in at 51:47. Awesome. I’m psyched! What was even cooler was that I was only 30 seconds off my 5k PR when I hit the halfway mark. That means that the next time I race a 5k, I’ll probably break 25:30, which will be very nice (I’m not yet shooting to break my best ever time in the 5k, which was 21:07, when I was 16).
Obviously, I now have a new goal to strive for: beating this time in the 10k. The 55:00 minute mark was important because that is the qualifying time for time groups 1a and 1b in the Peachtree Road Race, on July 4th, with 55,000 people. Getting up in those groups puts you ahead of about 45,000 people, which is really important if you don’t want to wait 45 minutes to cross the start line.
Yay me! I think I will sign up for the ING Georgia Half-Marathon now. If nothing else, the long slow runs did a great job preparing me for this 10k.
My splits, in case you’re interested:
1 mile – 9:06
3 mile – 16:56 (I missed the two mile split, so we’ve got two 8:28 splits)
4 mile – 7:57
5 mile – 8:36
6 mile – 7:56
10 k – 1:16
5 k split – 26:44
Total – 51:47
You can probably tell from my splits where the uphill-into-the-wind sections were. The course was two laps of a 5k run. The second lap was decidedly windier than the first. I estimate we had 10 knot winds with gusts to 20. It caught me good a few times.
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