2013 Run for Courage: A New 10K Personal Record

It was my third straight year of running the Run for Courage. In both of the previous years, I set a new personal record (two years ago I ran the 5K; last year I also did the 10K) and I looked forward to doing the same today.

Going into the day, I was a bit worried about parking and "traffic" on the course where the 5K and 10K merge since they were expecting over 3000 participants. Last year I did a lot of dodging of walkers in the last mile.

I got to the race extra early (~6:30) to ensure parking (I had planned to arrive closer to 6:45) and didn't have any problems. Probably could have gotten there at 7:15 and still have been fine. One of the nice things about the Run for Courage is that the festivities start at 7:00, so even if you're early, there's stuff going on (whereas at a lot of races you sit around until roughly a half hour before race start).

I think the toughest part of participating in Run for Courage is when they bring out the survivors. I get a bit choked up thinking about what the women have endured, and it makes me feel a bit silly about potentially not doing the race in the future due to concerns about overcrowding. What a lame problem to be so concerned about.

I think they did a better job of lining people up this year and did a good job of it although they may have starting lining people up a bit early. The 10K and 5K groups were separated (the separated area was used pre-race for a dance number) and this year there were pace indicators for the 10K (although they only had 7 and 8 min/mile markers). I stood slightly behind the 8 min/mile sign (I was targeting 8:10 or slightly under). No one lined up ahead of me. A few minutes before the start of the run, they had us all move forward, I tried to move forward slowly, but no one would pass me, so I ended up starting the race right at the start line and ended up in front for a bunch of the pictures. We'll see how those come out.

I knew that starting in the front could cause challenges pace-wise since I'd likely be running a midst those that would go much faster than I, and when you're getting passed a lot, you feel like you're going slowly and speed up. When the race started, I started off fast to make sure I wasn't in the way. I started off a a sub 6:00/mile pace, and after the first minute, I knew I need to slow down to closer to 8 minutes/mile. This is more challenging than it seems like it should have been, and halfway through the first mile, I was still running at about 7:00/mile. I was able to slow things down from there, but I still finished the first mile in a brisk (for me) 7:23. On the plus side, I had gained almost 50 seconds in the first mile over my targeted pace. On the other hand, I might have burned my legs up too much.

Burn out didn't affect my second mile, and I was able to keep my pace steady but under 8:00 minutes/mile as I completed the second in 7:51. I began to slow a bit in the third, and midway through the mile my pace crossed above 8:00/mile. That showed in my time as the third mile took me 8:05. So almost midway through the run, I was 72 seconds ahead of my targeted pace (which was my current personal record).

I continued to slow down for the fourth and fifth miles, but thankfully not by as much as I feared that I would. I lost a combined 18 seconds from my desired pace over those miles which kept me 54 seconds ahead of target. The "dreaded" merge with the 5Kers wasn't as bad as last year (there was still some dodging, but for the most part, I was able to stay to the left to go around most of the 5Kers). I finished the sixth mile in 8:08. I picked up the pace as I approached the finish line and crossed the line sprinting at nearly 5 minutes/mile. I crossed at 49:10: over a minute and a half faster than my previous PR.

According to my GPS watch, the course was slightly short (6.16) which was also the case last year, but this year it was closer to the full 10K. Based on my average pace for the race, it would have taken me another 23 seconds to finish had the course been full length. Even with that added time, I would have broken 50 minutes. It may be a bit more difficult to break this PR because of the course length, but that'll make it all the more of a challenge. Along with my first sub 50 minute 10K, I also had my first average pace of under 8 minutes/mile (7:55).

Here's a table showing my performance versus the average performance needed to match my PR coming into the race:

	Pace		+/-
Mile	Target	Actual	Mile	Overall
1	08:10.6	07:23.0	+47.6	+47.6
2	08:10.6	07:51.0	+19.6	+67.2
3	08:10.6	08:05.3	+5.3	+72.5
4	08:10.6	08:18.0	-7.4	+65.1
5	08:10.6	08:21.9	-11.3	+53.8
6	08:10.6	08:08.1	+2.5	+56.4
+	01:44.8	01:02.8	+42.0	+98.4

The 42 seconds I picked up in the final ~0.21 miles should be a pretty big clue that the course was a bit short.

The Run for Courage 10K is a well ran race, and if it fits into my schedule, I'll certainly run it next year regardless of any concerns I have over the ease of getting parking.