Monday, April 26, 2010

TC10K

This year's TC was awesome: the weather was perfect, there was well over 10,000 finishers, and I put in a performance that I'm happy with. I am usually disappointed with my results at the TC, but this year for the first time in a while I went in with very little expectations and just wanted to run it, and enjoy it. My training has been pretty inconsistent, so I knew that I wasn't going to run a 10K PB, but I secretly hoped that I could break 38 and maybe even get a new personal best time for the TC (having run 37:42 two years ago).

Going into the race my goal was to try and run the first 5K in 19 minutes, and then push the second half and see what happened. I almost ran according to that plan except for my first K which was too slow (4 mins). At 5K I was at 19:22, and on the uphill section from 4-6 I started picking it up, and much to my surprise I managed a few K's at 3:40 pace. My second 5K was 18:48, making for a decent negative split, something that is quite unusual for me! I finished in a time of 38:10, which is not quite what I hoped for but you can't expect great results if you don't put in the training!

It was nice to see some fellow Harriers and friends out there. I ran the first part of the race with Mike Janes, and then with Chris Moore from my gym. I saw Jeff Hunt cheering everyone along Dallas Road near Clover Point (get better soon Jeff!), and Sandi and Dee near the finish line. I also got some good encouragement from Nick Best at around the 8K marker when he yelled out to me "Don't forget to keep swinging your arms Chris!". Very helpful actually, it was nice to focus on that when I was running out of energy. And great to see Ming Kang back out running too!