There's no better way to start a day of over-indulgance (aka Thanksgiving) than going for a long run to pre-burn off a portion of the calories I would be eating later. Thankfully, it was a beautiful day for the run (last year, there was a threat of rain, but it didn't start until after the run was done) especially since there have been a couple days of rain recently.
The event was sold out at 4,000 participants. I'm not sure whether or not there were that many people there, but there were definitely more 10K runners at the event than there were at the Run for Courage two months ago. Seemed like there were an awful lot of 5K-ers also.
Since I hadn't ran much since the Four Bridges Half last month, I wasn't expecting to challenge my PR. I figured a finish at around 56 minutes would be a good target: a few minutes slower than my PR but better than my second best 10K.
As I usually do, I started off fast - probably too fast. At time my pace in the first mile dipped below 8 minutes/mile. I finished the first mile in 8:02, and I figured that my pace would rapidly decline from there. For comparison, I finished the first mile of my 10K PR in 8:30, and I needed to beat an average of 8:32.4 to set a new PR. So I had a lead of 27-29 seconds on my PR pace after one mile.
As expected, my second mile was slower than the first but I completed the mile in 8:28. This was still ahead of the overall pace needed for a PR but slower than I completed the second mile in my PR (8:25). Additionally as of late, I've been completing the second mile a few seconds faster than my first.
Things really slowed down in the third mile. Although I tried to get myself to a 9:00 mile pace, I finished the third mile in 9:15: over 45 seconds slower than the previous mile. My fourth mile was only slight slower than the third (9:20).
Shortly after finishing the fourth mile, the 10K and 5K courses converged. For roughly a tenth of a mile the courses were separated by cones with the 5Kers on the left and the 10Kers on the right. This worked pretty well. Once we got after that point, it got to be a bit of a mess: the 5Kers at this point were the walkers, and they were spread across the path with some hanging to the left, others to the right, and some blocking the middle. At this point, for those of us running the 10K, the course became an obstical course. I spent most of the final miles weaving around the walkers. This wasn't unexpected, as the race organizers warned that the course was not a fast one due to where the two courses converged. Regardless, I still had a descent pace for the final two miles.
Similar to the Run for Courage two months ago, my tracking device had the course at a tenth of a mile short. The full comparision between the Turkey Trot and my PR in the Run for Courage can be seen in this table:
| Pace | +/- | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mile | Record | Actual | Mile | Overall |
| 1 | 08:30 | 08:03 | +27 | +27 |
| 2 | 08:25 | 08:28 | -3 | +24 |
| 3 | 08:51 | 09:15 | -24 | -1 |
| 4 | 08:53 | 09:20 | -27 | -28 |
| 5 | 09:06 | 09:41 | -35 | -62 |
| 6 | 08:39 | 09:37 | -58 | -120 |
| + | 00:41 | 00:46 | -5 | -125 |
I'm pretty sure that I overran the first mile, but I'm not sure how much of a mistake that was. I find that getting a quick start is motivating for the second half of the run as I want to keep going with the quick pace. Of course, there's the converse to that argument which states that I can't get myself to maintain the speed I want if I've used up my legs. I think for my next 10K, I should target a 8:30 first mile and see what happens from there.
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