joe kleinerman 10k: race report

when i woke up on sunday morning, did not feel up to running. i felt in the grip of a slowly approaching cold - which probably wasn't helped by running a 5k race the previous day. still, don and emmy were about to meet me just after 7 for the drive into the city - and it was 10 degrees warmer than it was the morning before. so into the city we went!

the joe kleinerman 10k is the last team points race of the year. it's always a very competitive race. i hadn't planned on running it this year. i've run it plenty of times in the past - with times ranging from 40:50 to 46 minutes (the year the ground was covered with snow and the race changed to a fun run). today i thought i could run sub 6:50's and finish in 42:30 - but given how i felt, would be very happy to come in under 43 minutes.

here are my splits:

6:48
6:51 13:39
6:48 20:27
6:59 27:26
7:05 34:31
6:50 41:21
1:26 42:47

6:54 pace

in the first mile i realized a sub 6:50 pace would be tough. aside from the 6:48 (would've liked a 6:40), i couldn't get any traction on the downhill. in fact, i felt myself slip on what i thought was black ice - but that was probably my imagination. still, i almost wished for trail shoes! after the next two miles, which were right on 6:50 pace, i was already dreading cat hill - which was still a mile away!

mile 4 just slipped in under 7 minutes, but mile 5 was the deal breaker. the 7:05 was 15 seconds too slow, and added to the mile 4 split, a sub-42:30 was pretty much out of reach. but i rallied back with a 6:49 mile 6 and finished in 42:47, a 6:54 pace. not too shabby, and good enough to score (3rd place) for the trrc masters team!

emmy, who finished just ahead of me, was the only trrc masters woman in the race. without another two women, the team couldn't score today. but still, the trrc masters women team finished the year second overall - woo hoo!

next up - the holiday 4 miler.

here are my race photos.