My approach to summer racing has been a carefree one. I know I am not going to PR in the heat, so I planned on running a lot of shorter races and just trying my best. I ran a two-mile race at the beginning of the month with an official time of 14:07. This was good enough for first place in my graduating class (it was a reunion event) and third overall female.
Last weekend I ran the Lawyers Have Heart 10K, and this weekend I ran the Red Cross "Run For the Red" 10K. I am pleased with my performance and effort levels at each of these races. For the Lawyers Have Heart race, this marked my 6th consecutive year at the event, and my 5-year anniversary of running a 10K. My primary goal was to finally break 50:00. I've broken 50:00 many times at 10Ks, but never in a summer race. If I couldn't do that, then at the very least I wanted to set a course PR, which would require beating the 50:59 I ran in 2007. Surely I am in better shape now! For today's 10K, my goal was to simply try my best. I thought that the course might be more challenging than last week's, so I wasn't setting any time expectations.
Mile | Pace | Avg. HR | Pace | Avg. HR | |
1 | 7:58 | 176 | 7:59 | 172 | |
2 | 7:48 | 183 | 8:00 | 181 | |
3 | 7:54 | 186 | 8:10 | 184 | |
4 | 7:59 | 187 | 8:03 | 187 | |
5 | 8:12 | 187 | 8:05 | 187 | |
6 | 8:15 | 188 | 8:22 | 188 | |
6.2 | ? | 191 | 6:52 | 190 |
Okay, I just spent way too much time trying to format that table perfectly.
I feel like today's course was much more challenging and that I had to push harder. According to my heart rate, that's not exactly true. However, there is much more of a fade in the Lawyers race than there was in today's race. The only reason that the last mile is 8:22 was because about 1/4 of it was uphill. Not what you want to see at the end of the race. That speedy 6:52 was the downhill.
Anyway, the times were 49:50 in Lawyers (goal achieved!) and 50:13 in Run for the Red. I still think that I am more affected by the heat than most runners. I'm pleased with how I stuck it out and pushed hard in these races, and I think it will pay off when the fall comes and I start to care about PRs again.
