Groton 10K Road Race
This was my first road race in over 3 years...nothing like starting out the season with a bang and a longer race. I had never done a 10K race before...usually 5Ks and 5 milers and skipped this distance entirely and did two (2) 1/2 marathons in 2002....
I did one 10K practice about 1 week prior to the race near my house to get a feel for time and how I would be physically. I had wanted to do more training runs like it, but was really sick earlier in the month and the weather was not cooperating. Anyway, vowed to gallo-run on a 9/1 basis. Practice run time was 59:00, so that was what I was shooting for.
Met up with Suzy and her friends about 1 hour before the race and cheered the 5K runners coming in. Like Suzy said, there was a band playing at the finish and we were also treated to a band in the center of town and a person playing bag-pipes around the 2 mile mark. Just wish we had some more music later on! But you could hear the finish line band ~1/2 mile out and it was great!
A very scenic, rolling course…although the uphills were longer than the downhills…what’s up with that??? I tried to stay to my 9/1 plan, but ended up going more like 10 or 11 minutes before taking a break. That’s ok, my foot was handling it. There were two guys, one, w/ “SPITTY” on the back of his shirt, that I would try to reign in after my walk breaks. (BTW he lived up to what I HOPE was a nickname…) I was able to reign them in it until the last walk break but didn 't have enough to recover the ground lost and they finished ~15 seconds in front of me. I was hitting the mile marks fairly consistently, which was a nice surprise.
The race finished on a track and we cut thru a back driveway to get there. There were people waving us in and I thought the girl said “It’s a ½ mile to the track!” and I was saying some not to nice words under my breath…after I finished I realized she must have said “It’s a ½ lap around the track” or something to that affect. The ½ lap was the hardest part of the race!
Official results say 57:23, but my watch has 56:45. We were in the back of the pack and there wasn’t a pad at the start for the chip, so it’s a bit skewed.
All in all a fun race – I’d do it again.
I did one 10K practice about 1 week prior to the race near my house to get a feel for time and how I would be physically. I had wanted to do more training runs like it, but was really sick earlier in the month and the weather was not cooperating. Anyway, vowed to gallo-run on a 9/1 basis. Practice run time was 59:00, so that was what I was shooting for.
Met up with Suzy and her friends about 1 hour before the race and cheered the 5K runners coming in. Like Suzy said, there was a band playing at the finish and we were also treated to a band in the center of town and a person playing bag-pipes around the 2 mile mark. Just wish we had some more music later on! But you could hear the finish line band ~1/2 mile out and it was great!
A very scenic, rolling course…although the uphills were longer than the downhills…what’s up with that??? I tried to stay to my 9/1 plan, but ended up going more like 10 or 11 minutes before taking a break. That’s ok, my foot was handling it. There were two guys, one, w/ “SPITTY” on the back of his shirt, that I would try to reign in after my walk breaks. (BTW he lived up to what I HOPE was a nickname…) I was able to reign them in it until the last walk break but didn 't have enough to recover the ground lost and they finished ~15 seconds in front of me. I was hitting the mile marks fairly consistently, which was a nice surprise.
The race finished on a track and we cut thru a back driveway to get there. There were people waving us in and I thought the girl said “It’s a ½ mile to the track!” and I was saying some not to nice words under my breath…after I finished I realized she must have said “It’s a ½ lap around the track” or something to that affect. The ½ lap was the hardest part of the race!
Official results say 57:23, but my watch has 56:45. We were in the back of the pack and there wasn’t a pad at the start for the chip, so it’s a bit skewed.
All in all a fun race – I’d do it again.
posted by zojmn151 | 4:05 PM
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