4th of July 10k Race note...

Saturday morning:

K and I headed up to Barrington Hills for our annual 10k hilly race with our friend Bridget whom lives close to the start/finish line area. This is the 4th year now we have done this great 10k race as we know this region well from our longing training runs in this area. Kristen was going to run with Bridget today as I determined the day before I was just going to cruise this run for some training base conditioning plus my legs were completely trashed still race morning. With the lack of proper running speedwork training specifically I didn’t go into this event with any PR expectations. This year I didn’t even warm-up before the event as the weather was cold, damp and drizzling throughout the whole early morning.

As the race started I used the first two miles as warm-up to see how my body was working and I adjusted from there through the finish line. I cruised the race throwing in a couple surges after mile three to test my legs & body but I couldn’t sustain the effort longer than a quarter mile. So after a couple of these attempts I found a good pace for my current running abilities and at about mile 5 I decided to push myself no matter what my body was telling me was hurting. The last 2ths of the race I always think about it like a two hundred meter repeat which always gives me a good kick through the finish line.

I ended up with a 10k finish time of 49:51 which is a mile pace of 8:03. My average HR was at 141bpm plus I maxed out my HR at the finish line at 164bpm. Normally I have run this hilly race in the 45 minute zone so you can see by my result just how much my cycling specific training these last six weeks has affected my running speed…but its something I can accept ;-)

Bridget had a great PR race as Kristen ran with her the whole way! Great job ladies :-)

b