Soldier Field 10-mile

I freaking rocked it today.  Normally I don't come away from races feeling this good about my run, especially when I'm hoping to be in the money and finish 9th, but I seriously don't think I could have gotten any more out of that run.  10 miles, 53:01, 5:18 average per mile, near perfect mile splits, PR by almost a minute, all while living the Booth life. I should mention when I ran my half marathon PR last September, I averaged 5:24 per mile, and weighed about 10 pounds less than I do now.

Today's course headed south from Soldier Field for 10 miles, then flipped and come back north along the same path.  I was a little worried, because normally the wind blows south on Lakeshore, so I expected a tailwind on the way out and headwind coming home.  Today the winds blew the opposite direction.  Add in 55 degree overcast weather and we had perfect racing conditions. I went out pretty hard, and after an opening mile in 5:18, I found myself just behind a pack of 4 in around 10th place.  It was a little faster than I wanted to go out, and I didn't feel that springy, but decided the best thing I could do was latch on to these guys and have them block the wind for me for the next four miles. If it meant a slightly faster than comfortable pace so be it.

This ended up being a make or break moment.  If I didn't go with these guys, there's no way I would have kept my pace running into the wind, and would have been much more tired, but I still wasn't confident I could run sub-5:20's for 10 miles.  It was a big risk to take a mile into the race but it paid off big time.  I hung on to them until the turnaround and then they dropped me.  I immediately expected my pace would slow and I would slip down to 5:40's or something in that range, but with the tailwind pushing me home I actually ended up negative splitting the race, and ran 53:01 (26:40, 26:21).  It's crazy because six weeks ago I couldn't break 27 minutes for an 8k and I just ran two back-to-back in well under that time.  I'm not sure how I ran this fast given I'm still weighing in at 200 pounds and could be eating better.

This race does give me hope for the fall, since I will not be running much for the next 10 weeks with my internship in New York.  I'll have 12 weeks to get ready for the NYC marathon, and it appears that should be plenty of time to get in shape for a PR.

My splits today: 5:18, 5:19, 5:18, 5:19, 5:24, 5:16, 5:19, 5:16, 5:15, 5:14.

5/30 update: went for a run this morning and my legs felt like jello.  They haven't been this drained in a while, so definitely pleased with the effort.