Ran My First 10K and Beat the 1 Hour Mark!

That's pretty cool too. There was a walking 5K at this too, but it started 2 and a half hours later. So I didn't stay to see it. Glad you had fun working.

Oops, I can't believe I forgot to post the actual time! It was 59 minutes and 51 seconds. I couldn't believe how fast some people could run this! Two people ran it in just over 29 minutes! I would love to be that fast, but I think that is probably something you must be born with. I do need to lose a bit of weight too. For an average person I'm okay, but for a runner apparently I'm overweight. But I figure I'll just hope for the pounds of fat to melt off rather than do anything specifically to deal with them.

Hey that's pretty good! I don't know what my walking pace would be. Maybe I should test that out sometime on the track. Just walk a mile and time it or something. A negative split is when you run the first half of the race at a slower pace to save up your pace for the second half. Some people like them, some don't. I usually start way too fast so I wanted to see if this way was better. I can't really decide if it would be for a 5K, but I liked this method for the 10K because if I started off too fast I probably wouldn't have been able to continue. I have to agree, 1/2 hour to the starting line sounds horrible! I've heard of that happening on marathons too. A lot of marathons now have multiple start times due to chip timing. I think it would work well if people would accurately estimate their pace so that they ended up in the correct group.

It was crazy at the start! I like to at least jog up to the start, but everyone was just walking. I kept having to pass people later on too because a lot of people started off too fast and then had to walk or some people even had walking breaks as part of their plan, and they would just start walking randomly. Someone from our running group ran the 10K in 40 minutes. I was very impressed! I saw them once too as they ran along the other side of part of the course where you could see the elites and the people following them. Some people bring their children to our running group now. I'm not sure how that's really looked upon though. They play in the grass in the center of the track. I like having the running group though, I get a good speed workout and get motivation to keep going. I'm thinking about doing their long run this Sunday before I go to volunteer. But I can't decide yet if that's too crazy or what. I really only need to do a 4 mile run to complete my weekly mileage goal for my training program.

Not that I do run but, I certainly feel worse after running than I do after cycling!!

I think the longest time I saw was 3 hours and 40 minutes to finish the 10K. You'd probably finish faster than that though. Some people that were walking finished in about 2 hours. I've been running since June, but didn't specifically start training for this race until about 6 weeks ago. Mostly I was just building up my long run mileage so that I'd be able to do the distance. Before the race though, the most I'd ever done was just barely under the 10K mileage. But doing an extra .2 miles isn't really that bad. I always seem to finish right in the middle of the pack, so I don't think I'll be winning anything anytime soon. But right now if I was in my 60's or 70's I'd have some age placement awards. Not even close to getting one of those in my age division.

I was like 70 something place in my age group (out of about 200 people). The entire field was 4000 people. Out here, your age group is well represented too. I wouldn't place in your age group yet even. I think the largest age group might actually be the 50 year olds though, because they actually generally have better times than 40 somethings at the races I've been to. Kind of odd. I guess it's because a lot of people start running in their 40s and then peak in their 50s.

haha that's where I have an advantage over you :) My age range doesn't have very many women racers locally 40-44 I may be able to walk away from a race with some sort of placement. Though i won't feel like it's extraordinary.

Thanks! :)

Thanks! I probably looked fine once it was over, just not anywhere within 300 meters of the finish line. :) And yes, I was happy too that I also raised almost $100 for the food bank!