2 posts tagged “10k”
This is disappointing.
Considering that my last 10k was at least 3 months ago, i expected at least some improvement. Granted, i may have been asking too much to shave a full minute off my PR, but to actually come in SLOWER by 25 seconds... yeesh. At least i can still do it under 60 minutes.
Since the moment i crossed the finish line i've been coming up with excuses, which i will decline to mention here (i am trying to teach my son not to whine, and the best way to teach is by example). The bottom line is that i wasn't able to reach my goal and i have to train a little harder (with a focus on speed) for the next race. More hills! More lactate threshold workouts! More tempo runs! Fartlek!
One thing i wonder about is whether or not this signifies that i'm past the n00b phase. I've been running consistently for almost a solid year now (sporadically for around 2 years) and apparently am not deriving any more benefit from the bara-bara (anything goes) approach to running. I absolutely refuse to believe that this is my personal plateau; while i'll never qualify for Boston, i do hope to to 26.2 at 9:00 at some point in the future. Let's see if a few months of planned workouts helps. I've got a few more races (albeit 5Ks) for the season, and hope to hit my peak with the Grand Rapids Half Marathon in October.
So today i finished my first 10k, the aptly-named Hudsonville Eagle 10k.
At least there's been consistent improvement in my "Age Grade," which i take to be my percentile rating. In my very first race, Mitchell's Run through Rockford, i was 39.7%. I'm moving up in the world!
The median time (not age-adjusted) seems to be roughly 50 minutes... seeing as how one of my (near-future) goals is hitting a 25-minute 5k, a 50-minute 10k would be consistent.
Although i haven't thrown my hat over the fence, i am contemplating running half of the Grand Rapids Marathon this coming October. I hope i don't dither too long that all the spots will evaporate before i try to register, but i don't want to sign up without a reasonable expectation of finishing under two hours. Maybe i should just go ahead and sign up, at least then i'll have something to work towards. After all, i have nothing to lose except my pride and $63.
One interesting thing that i tried this week was setting my strike rate with music. More on this later.
