I passed my first test.
For about a month I have been telling Shelly, "It is gonna be close". My goal of beating 52 minutes for this 10K seemed ambitious but not quite impossible.
Don't get me wrong. I haven't been running that fast during my training, at least not for 6 miles. I was relying on race day magic to get me there. I have been running about 25 miles-per-week and almost all of them slow. I would only push the pace on a handful of miles each week.
What really put this first race goal in doubt was the course. There is a big hill in the last mile. In total there are 240 feet of elevation change over the course. Per some online calculators that costs about a minute.
So, I lined up needing more than the usual amount of race day magic. I didn't need Grandpa's quarter-behind-the-ear trick. I needed some Harry Potter level stuff. One of those brooms would do nicely for that hill, thank you.
I had no idea of my time throughout the race. I ran totally by feel, or more to the point, by breath. I held my pace back enough to maintain a 3-3 breathing pattern though the first 4 miles. Three steps breathing in, three steps breathing out. At the 4 mile point though, knowing I am running up that hill, I went to 2-2 and probably 1-1 near the top.
Coming down the hill I told myself to sprint. It is a steep downhill all the way to the finish. Sprint man, sprint. I wish you could have seen me. It was amazing.
Shelly placed herself right at the end of a long straightaway near the finish. She saw me and she can tell you, "No. It didn't look like a sprint."Regardless, I crossed the finish line in 51:53. I beat my goal by 7 seconds without once looking at a clock.
Magic.
