Cary Road Race 10K 2010 Race Report

To PR or not-PR? That is the - wait. What is my PR for a 10K? I had no clue at the start of the race. I really had no expectations or plans on what I was going to do today. Right before the start, I decided that I'd try to run the first half in a 9:30 and see how I felt.

The course is one of the nicer ones in the area. It's a 5K loop starting next to the Koka Booth Amphitheatre in Cary. The finish is the arch that marks the entrance of Koka Booth. The first leg is an out and back on Regency Parkway that turns onto a trail around the lake behind the amphitheatre. It basically has one hill, that you hit twice since you run the loop twice. The rest of it is either flat or downhill. It's a pretty course as well as a good one to run.

I started a little fast knowing I had the hill early. It's the second half of Mile 1 and again at Mile 4. I took it easy on the hill the first time knowing that I needed to save energy for later. I didn't want to use too much on Mile 1. When I hit the turnaround, I was going about 9:15 average. As I was coming back down Regency, it's a slight downhill with some flat before you hit the downhill that is the reverse of the hill you came up. I took the downs pretty strong, so when I hit the lake, I was running about a 9:05. By time I hit the halfway mark I was averaging around 9:03 and was feeling good, so I tried to keep my pace the rest of the way.

When I hit the hill the second time, I came up it very strong. I was really feeling great. I guess my sub-10 pace 12 miler the weekend before did me some good. I'll have to thank Bill and Karyn for pushing me and putting up with my complaining about how fast they were running. I again took the downhill strong, so by the time I got to the lake the second time, I realized I was running a sub-9 pace on my watch. At that point, I just tried to finish strong.

I came in a little of 56 minutes. My watch time is exactly 56. Here are my final splits:
Mile 1: 9:18
Mile 2: 8:47
Mile 3: 8:59
Mile 4: 9:19
Mile 5: 8:36
Mile 6: 8:52
Last .25: 2:09
Total: 6.25 in 56:00 for an 8:58.

When I got home, I had to check my race history. It's at that point I realized this race was a 10K PR for me. I beat my prior PR by almost 2 minutes and almost 4 minutes on this course. This was the first race longer than a 5K that I ran a sub-9. Overall, it was a great race...