Race report: Twilight 10km race

April 5, 2009 at 03:51AM     Running

Tonight I participated in my first 10km race in nearly 5 years. I ran in the Twilight Running Festival 10km race at the University of Queensland here in Brisbane.

I did not expect to do particularly well. Up until the race, I had only run 57km this year, and only 3 runs totalling 20km since I arrived in Brisbane two weeks ago. And the runs in Brisbane have been tough on me: it's warmer (average running temperature about 24°C, compared to a range of about 12-17°C for last year's running season in Waterloo); it's been more humid; and there have been more hills.

I wasn't particularly mentally prepared either for the race today. I did not have a race plan, I had not thought much about the race this week. I had a goal of 50:00 (12.0km/hr) but did not think I would actually be able to meet that goal.

However, I managed to achieve a surprisingly good result for me: a time of 48:19, which gives an average speed of 12.4km/hr (4:50 min/km). I am quite pleased with the result. I had a pretty solid run. The weather was good (22°C, with a touch of rain just before the race to cool the air down). The course took us from the athletics stadium at UQ down along the river, across a foot bridge, and then up a quiet street alongside the river, and then we retraced our steps back to the stadium for one lap of the track before hitting the finish line. Going through the GPS data after the race, I'm surprised to see that I maintained a nearly constant pace for the first 7km (save for the 2km split); it felt like I slowed down, but I guess I didn't. At about 5 or 6km I noticed another person running beside me for a while, and found that it was helpful. She dropped back once or twice but I called back to her and she kept with me right through the end, which really helped me out. At 7.5km we crossed back over the river and the hills up to the bridge were killer. The last 2km were tough, and I didn't have much left for a sprint at the end. But I made it! A good start to the season. I might do a few more 10km races before the half marathon in August.

The race started on the campus of the University of Queensland.

Distance	Total time	Split	Speed
1km	4:52	4:52	12.3km/h
2km	9:56	5:04	11.8km/h
3km	14:33	4:37	13.0km/h
4km	19:18	4:45	12.6km/h
5km	24:05	4:47	12.5km/h
6km	28:56	4:51	12.4km/h
7km	33:47	4:51	12.4km/h
8km	38:50	5:03	11.9km/h
9km	43:46	4:56	12.2km/h
10km	48:19	4:33	13.2km/h