The Cotton Row Run was my first 10k ever, so naturally I had no idea what my pace needed to be. I decided to shoot for a 46 minute time, but I wasn’t really sure if my body could maintain ~7:15 m/m for the duration of the race. I ran into Lauren Lemieux while I was warming up and she said that she was planning on running a 46 minute 10k, so I decided to pace her and just muscle it out.
It took forever to get started because there were 2400 people running the 10k and we were just bumping against each other for the first quarter mile. I kept up with Lauren for the first mile, but after half a mile I knew I wasn’t gonna be able to keep up with her. I fell behind her at the first mile marker and crossed it at 6:45. I never saw her again.
In order to compensate for my fast first mile, I pulled back some and settled into what I thought was a decent pace. I crossed mile 2 at 14:30. Halfway through the race was the ridiculously steep hill that kills everyone. I decided to walk it and I’m really glad that I did. I’m not sure I would have made it otherwise. After the hill, the rest of the race was relatively downhill.
Around mile 4 I started to feel my breakfast coming up. The last 2 road races I’ve run I’ve thrown up at the end. I need to find a good breakfast to eat before races as eggs and coffee isn’t cutting it.
I was able to maintain a solid 8:00 m/m after that despite fighting down my breakfast. At one point I considered throwing up in front of the cameras because I knew I’d get my picture in the paper, but I decided finishing was more important. The last 100m I dug deep and passed about 15 people before crossing the finish line. That’s good because I felt really good passing all those people, it’s bad because it means that I had more in the tank and didn’t do a good job pacing.
All in all, it was a good first 10k. Next time I'll try and do a better job out of the gate and do some more speed work leading up to it.
Final time – 49:52
Pace – 8:01 m/m
Place – 410/2048
