Back in Gear

I ran the Get in Gear 10K this morning. There was no rain and it was perfect for racing. I had a goal to run 7:30's today and I met that goal. After not running in January or February, it took 160 miles of running over the past two months to get me back to where I am today. I'm very happy and am ready to jump back into running with my friends for distances up to 12 miles. Soon enough I'll be running longer with them too.

At the race today I started too far back. At mile one I was thinking that the race was way too big and why the heck did I even decide to run it. It took about two miles to get around most of the people that had a slower target pace than me. At that point I could just settle in to a pace and run. Here are my paces:

Mile 1: 8:00
Mile 2: 7:11
Mile 3: 7:28
Mile 4: 7:25
Mile 5: 7:34
Last 1.2: 7:38 pace (9:00 time)

from the results online:

bib number:	1048
age:	49
gender:	M
location:	Eagan, MN
overall place:	485 out of 3419
division place:	37 out of 174
gender place:	389 out of 1647
time:	46:49
pace:	7:32

Looking at my paces I'm slightly disappointed that my pace dropped off 10 to 15 seconds for the last two miles but I'll get that back in time. I ran at a harder effort than the Trail Mix last Saturday but I maintained a good breathing pattern all the way to the finish. I wasn't sucking wind loudly like some of those I passed. My legs feel good, my feet feel good and I think I'll just run some easy miles tomorrow.
--Mark