10K's To Remember

Today I ran my first 10K race (6.2 miles) since October 26, 1991 (Bellflower Liberty Run). I wasn't sure what year I last ran a 10K so I had to dig out my log books to find out when it was. Today's race was the Wrigley River Run which I had mentioned in some of my previous posts. Its a nice small neighborhood race so the starting line wasn't crowded like some of the bigger races. The runners can hit their full stride almost right away. In the bigger races, sometimes you have to walk for about two minutes or more before you can even reach the starting line. It was a nice, cool, overcast day with some little sprinkles here and there which didn't help since I wear eyeglasses and I don't have wipers attached to them. So no, I wasn't crying because of the pain of having to run harder than I anticipated. It was just a little bit of rain on my face and eyeglasses.

I warmed up by jogging for 25 minutes before the the 10k (9:11 pace, damn! Too fast for a warmup). During the 10k, I hit the first mile in 8:41 (damn! Too fast again!) So I just tried to keep an even stride and monitor the status of my ankles. I wasn't keeping track of the time too much and wasn't even checking my mile splits. I was just putting one foot in front of the other and tried to hang on. I figured if I run 6.2 miles in about an hour it would be good enough. Imagine to my surprise as I was approaching the finish line the time was under 55 minutes. I eventually finished in 54 minutes and 56 seconds.

Now for comparison purposes through the years:

My first ever 10K race in the U.S. was the Paramount 10K in January, 1981 – 56:59

My personal best 10k was the Bellflower Liberty Run on October 26, 1991- 43:20

Today's Wrigley River Run 10k, almost 18 years later, June 6, 2009 – 54:56

I considered myself retired from racing since 1992 after having set all of my personal best times from the 5K to the Marathon. Nowadays I just run for exercise and to keep my weight at an acceptable level. After today's warm-up and race I had lost 4 pounds of fluids and my pee was very dark yellow when I got home, so I got very dehydrated. I'm currently nourishing my kidneys and icing my ankles as I type this. It was a nice experience running the 10K again and finishing at a far better time than I anticipated but I'm not at any time planning on going back to racing again. I'm still retired :)