Wimberly Townsend 10K Race Report

I got up at 4:00 a.m. for this race. Ugh! It was a long, long drive, made even longer by the fact Leopold slept the entire time, and so by the time we arrived, I was feeling pretty out of it. And it was COLD! I had a hard time warming up. I noticed that even though I had my usual pre-race jitters, I just didn't feel as sharp and focused as I did for my last race, which was local. This makes me think I should consider spending the night for my 1/2 Marathon race.

So, here's the start of the race. All 20 of us! I mean, I suspected this would be a small race, but 20 people? Really? It seems the race is put on by the Knoxville Track Club, and perhaps they forgot to tell others about it, because all I saw were Track Club people. This was definitely a different experience.



So after a few minutes of waiting, we set off. Immediately a group of 4 took off at about 6:00 pace, never to be seen again (at least not until the awards ceremony). I settled in to my first mile, trying to slow myself down to end up with a 7:55 first mile per my race plan. However, I hit the 1-mile marker at 7:50. I continued to try to slow it down, but hit miles 2 and 3 in 7:50 and 7:52 respectively.

After that, I had no problem slowing down. Only problems with speeding up. Any time I may have "gained" in miles 1-3 was completely lost (and more) on miles 4-6, as witnessed by these pathetic split times: Mile 4 in 7:53, mile 5 in 7:58 (ouch), and mile 6 in 8:11 (Yikes!). I did, however, manage to kick it in for the final .2 at 7:36 pace (the audience effect!), and finished in 49:13.

Here's me, happy to be done, and happier still to have some hot coffee!



It has been forever since I ran a 10K, so the whole PR thing was pretty much guaranteed. I looked back at my time trial for 10K leading up to my last marathon and saw I ran it in 52:02. So 49:13 is almost a 3 minute PR. So, that's nice...

What I learned:

1. Learn to get disciplined on those early miles and slow down.
2. Don't drive 3 hours to a race that you care about.

What's Up Next:

11/14 1/2 Marathon Time Trial (race). Is a sub 1:49 in the cards for me???? We'll see. Stay tuned...