This morning I ran in the Revenge of the Penguins 10-Mile Race. It is run on the C&O Canal Trail along the Potomac River. Because of the park permits needed for the race, it's limited to a pretty small number of runners - about 500. There is also a 20-mile race that starts and finishes in the same place.
I haven't run 10 miles in quite a long time, since I've been focusing on training for a 10K, so my conservative goal was to finish in less than 1:50:00, which would be an average speed of 5.5 mph. Another goal I had was to run the race smart, starting out easily and gradually increasing speed, with a big push at the end.
The day was beautiful. It had rained overnight, but fortunately stopped before the race. The path dried off nicely. It was in the low 60s F, which was great. The course is mostly shady. The conditions really couldn't have been any better.
Happily, I achieved both of my goals. I finished in about 1:47:35 (still waiting on the official time). That's an average speed of 5.6 mph, which is good. Also, I had negative splits every mile. I tried to keep gradually increasing my speed without killing myself, and it worked. I pushed pretty hard for the last mile and a half, and still had enough to go all-out in the last few hundred yards. (The finish line snuck up on me a bit, so I didn't start my last push as early as I might have.)
It was a really nice race. I think that I will make this a goal race for next fall and really try to do well. The race is small enough that if I improve reasonably, I could place in my age group.
I didn't do any other activity today - the race was enough! I did some easy yard work and house cleaning.
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