This was not a particularly difficult race -- just heading out, a few turns, and heading back on a different street. My watch time (which was very accurate to real time) showed 1:04:01 - a little over a minute better than my previous best 10K. I love new personal records (PR).
The official time shown for me was 1:04:51 - a full 50 seconds from gun until I shuffled my way to the starting line. The start was not very organized, and the mile signs were not well marked either. A few of our gang did better than I (under an hour for two of them), and the rest were a bit behind me. In the middle is fine... I even ran into a friend / neighbor midway on the course. We ran together for a bit until I realized that his pace would kill me so I wisely slowed down.
Heading out, the road was one really long, slow uphill climb. A right turn changed that and quickly headed down hill to make up for all of the elevation in a couple of hundred yards. The remaining course was fairly flat. I only found that the fifth and early sixth mile were difficult, then I regained my legs to finish strong.
I have been very conscientious of my pace lately (thanks to the pace alarm on my watch), and know that if I hit a mile marker well under my time that I'm pretty much screwed until I can slow down and recover. During one weekday run, we ran 3 miles. My normal pace is between 10:30 and 10:45 for the first mile, then closer to 10 for the second. We hit one mile at 9:30 and finished in about 28 minutes (9:20 pace). I was dead for the next two days... I think I'll keep to my 10 - 10:30 pace for a while!
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