This last Saturday, I FINALLY PR’ed a race, and I had not PR’ed a race since I was 16 years old (your time running a new distance you had not ever run does not count).
The race I ran was the Heart of the Summit 10k in Lee’s Summit, MO. This race is really small, but a lot of fun. I love the small town vibe it holds, and the simplicity of it. Last year I was the 2nd place female finisher (to my dear friend Stacy!), so this year I was in it to win it! Last year was also my first 10k experience, completed in 44:39.
I knew that I wanted to push myself as hard as I could, and that I would be using this as a speed workout for my NYC training. My goal was to just go out there and run it as hard as I could, and PR the thing.
My alarm went off WAY too early on Saturday morning. I was at a black tie event the night before, and stayed a bit longer than I had intended. Once I got to the start of the race, my running buddies and I ran a quick 4 miles to get in some miles. Following our warm up we stretched, and lined up!
As soon as I lined up at the start, I measured up my competition. And I felt pretty good about it. In fact, it looked like my girlfriends would be my strongest competition!
The race began, and I took the lead. I tried not to go out too fast, but judging my pace was really hard since I was in the lead! I pushed it hard the first 5k, then hit the turnaround point (did I mention this was a two loop 10k with 3 out and back portions????). Around mile 4 I started thinking, “ok, this is getting kind of hard, but somehow I am still leading the thing. Where are all the fast men?!”.
Around mile 5, I got passed by a guy running in board shorts holding a liter sized water bottle (two faux pas if you ask me!). I tried my hardest to hang on, but he just kept creeping past me. I ended up finishing the race in 2nd place overall, 1st place among the females. Although I was sad and let down I didn’t win the entire thing, I was still very excited I won the women’s….and PR’ed!!!!!
Splits: 6:39, 6:48, 6:52, 6:59, 6:55, 7:01 (I hate it when my last mile is my slowest mile!)
My finish time was a 42:49 (6:5oish pace), almost 2 minutes faster than the year before. And to me, that was something worth celebrating.
Thanks for all of the kind words following the race, and the encouragement leading up to it!!!
xo,
Ali
Congrats on an amazing time!
You girls rock!!! Way to go!
Woohoo!! You girls are awesome. This is what makes me miss KC the most! I think I have found a half to sign up for – let the training begin. You’re an inspiration. I seriously get up every morning and check my twitter to see what you’ve done then I figure if Ali did all that I better drag my butt out of bed and do something. Love you!
Wow! You killed that thing! That is a great time!