Wounded Veteran Run

After completing my weekday runs, I decided that I was ready to take on my first organized 10K of the year. Lucky for me, the Wounded Veteran Run was scheduled to take place on Monday, and so I promptly signed up.

I got to the race a bit earlier than needed for parking, but I always chose to err on the side of caution when it comes to making sure that I get to a race on time. Fortunately for me, the race parking was near a grocery store, and I was able to do a bit of shopping before heading over to observe the pre-race festivities.

I was a bit concerned coming into the race regarding my left knee which has been a bit sore the past week. It felt pretty good yesterday, but I wasn't completely sure how it was going to react to a hard six miles.

Since I hadn't ran a 10K since I had to sit out of running for six months to allow my Achilles to heal, I wasn't expecting a PR. I hoped to be within a minute and a half of my 10K PR. I didn't actually look up my PR prior to the race, but I knew that beating 50 minutes would be within the right range.

Once the race started, I got off to what was likely too fast of a start, and I kept a 7:30 per mile pace for the first mile and a half. I started to slow down from there, but I was able to finish each of the first three miles in under 8 minutes each. My fourth mile clocked in at 8:05, and the last two were 8:15.

As I got close to the finish line, I realized that I wasn't certain what my PR time for a 10K was and based on my time, I knew that I would unlikely set a new PR unless the course was short, but I kept pushing ahead. The last mile had the added complexity of weaving around the 5K runners (the 5K and 10K courses merged at roughly the five mile mark).

When my GPS watch beeped to indicate I had completed the sixth mile, I could tell that the finish line was too close for the course to have been regulation length. Checking with some other fellow runners after the finish, my guess is that the course was a tenth mile too short.

Checking my time after the run, I found that I finished in 48 minutes flat. Taking a look back, my 10K PR had been 48:22.5, so I broke it by 22.5 seconds:

Had the course been regulation length, I likely would have finished around 48:45 which would not have been a new PR. However, that would have been good for my second best 10K which still would have been quite good all things considered.

Regardless, I set a new 10K PR today. Based on my progress in getting back to form, I'd say that I ought to be able to break this 10K this fall.