39:12!

Well folks, the title says it all for today's post ... a new personal best at the 10K distance!! Today was the 19th annual running of the ever-popular Times Colonist 10K event here in Victoria. I hit the street this morning at 8:00 AM sharp along with close to 11,000 other runners and walkers. The weather was perfect for a 10K event - not too cold, but dead calm and slightly overcast. I started near the front of my predicted finish time, and ran the first kilometer slower than my projected race pace (4:03). This represents a huge achievement for me, because I tend to shoot off the start line like a jackrabbit, and inevitably pay for it later on in the race. I picked it up for km's 2 and 3 (3:49 and 3:46 respectively), then calmed down and maintained a sub-4 minute pace for the rest of the event. I would like to say that I ran the last km faster than any other, but the best I could manage by that point was 3:55 - still nothing to be disappointed with for me! All in all, I am very pleased with this morning's race. Apparently the combination of distance training and speed sessions that I've been employing over the last 2 months paid off HUGE today!

Enough about me already! Congratulations to everyone who came out for today's event. I was very pleased to see a number of my 10K clinic participants running strong right up to the finish line. Well done! You should be very proud of yourselves! (For a full list of race results, click here.) I was especially pleased to see Brenda S. finish in 57:09 - she put in so much hard work and dedication during the clinic this year. We had planned for her to run "under 60 minutes", although we never quite agreed just how far under 60 minutes we were shooting for! Apparently, she was right and I was wrong - good for you, Brenda!!

I gotta cut this short folks - I start work soon, and I can't be late! I'll be writing more in a couple of days - it's time to start planning for the next race... As always, thanks for stopping by!