Roosevelt Island Hot Chocolate 10K Race Recap

After our massively underwhelming race in Las Vegas, I decided to finish off the year with a 10K to take advantage of my race fitness. I chose the Hot Chocolate 10K at Roosevelt Island because I thought I could recover enough in two weeks while not loosing much fitness. And it was free because I placed last time, and I'm cheap, so you do the math. 


Traditional pre-race nutrition/clothing/arrival info:
Got up and ate a banana + oatmeal+ peanut butter. Great combo. Sits on stomach well and I haven't had GI stress from this yet. I'm thinking about trying an all-sugar combo (shot blocks or gu) for next race though. I highly doubt these complex-ish carbs have time to digest enough to be an energy source. Listen to me sounding like some kind of nutrition guru. Phhh.

Clothing choices. The weather was in the low 40s with high humidity and was raining a little. I chose long-sleeved Lulu running swiftly top + my running tights and Mizuno Inspire 9s because my feet and ankles were still hurting from my epic walking tour of New York.

My mum came to this race, which was fun. Unfortunately my husband usual race photographer
couldn't make it because he had to study for his finals. I know, so selfish.

We hopped in a cab to Roosevelt Island; I knew it would take a while on the subway, having run a 10K there before. And I was so amazing with pre-race prep that I managed to not plug in my Garmin (it was dead flat) until 5 minutes before we needed to leave. Awesome.

When I arrived at the start line (no warm-up as there was no time) the race director was telling us the race was rerouted because of damage Hurricane Sandy had done, and there would be mud on part of the path. Double awesome.  Honestly the mud was fine, mostly compacted, but the reroute added a few turns to an otherwise straight forward route.

So my garmin is recharging now (it held off dying until after the race, thankfully) and Im too lazy to get off the couch to get it... but my splits were something like this:

Mile 1: 6:22. Whoa. I decided to run by feel on this and it turned out to not be such a good idea. I was aiming for a 6:40 pace across the board, and this was a rookie mistake.
Mile 2: 6:37. Legs were feeling pretty strong. I should have been able to hold this pace.
Mile 3-4: both miles were 6:5x. Not awesome. We were running into some strong-ish headwinds which made me perhaps a few seconds slower per mile, but blah blah blah conditions, tired, blah etc.  The fact is, I could have run faster and didn't. [Edited to add: these miles were 6:57 and 6:53 respectively. So, basically like my half marathon tempo runs. Yay me.]
Mile 5-6: You'll be happy to know I actually did get off my ass to get the darn Garmin. These miles were 6:55 and 6:52. 
Mile 0.2: 8:15min/mile. Ah yeah, I thought I was getting in a real strong kick there. [Edited to add: actually I just realized that I forgot to switch off my garmin time at the finish line and it kept rolling for about 40 seconds. My pace for the 0.2 was right about a 6:00min/mile.]

1st in division, 4th female, 15th overall with a time of 42:07 and 6:48 min/mile avg pace.

So here are my thoughts in no particular order, because I know Kristen loves non-consecutive, unrelated bullet points:

• Goal: was around a 40:xx (6:40 pace).
• Physically: I could have run faster. No excuses, I just didn't. However, I will say that I should have rested more after Vegas, and definitely should not have walked 8 miles and been standing in lines for hours to see Christmas lights in New York for the two days beforehand. I also ran the first mile waaaaay too fast. A rookie mistake because like basically a lot of runners, a lot of lawyers and certainly most middle-class white females in their 20s, I apparently believe that the RULES DON'T APPLY TO ME. 
• Mentally: I don't think my my heart was in this. I was sooooo fired up about Vegas and we failed by such epic proportions that I think I was a little done with racing on this one. Also on the mental front, not checking my pace is not as good a strategy for me as it is for some. Most of the time I speed up when I check my pace because its a kick in the ass. I think I'll continue the compulsive checking at least in shorter races.
• Physically Part Deux: Maybe the wind in Vegas was a blessing in disguise and I just wasn't fit enough to run a sub-1:30 (about 4 seconds slower per mile). Though frankly I felt that I could have kept running this race quite a bit longer, so who knows. Sometimes you just don't run as fast as you wish you had and that is all there is to it. 
• Overall: its still a PR, and I still took the opportunity to get first place in my age-group, which will be gone in January when I turn the big 3-oh. Oh and I have shaved off almost 3 minutes from last 10K in September. Times aside though, it was a fun race - NYC Runs is a great company, and I really enjoy what they do. It is no fuss, no frills and a relatively small field. 

Please also observe the obligatory race photo from my mum who figured out the sports-mode setting on my camera but didn't manage to crop out the inevitable 5K finisher and that awesome backwards-capped dude who had been drafting off me (but possibly couldn't cope with being beaten by a girl). Or my astounding heel strike:

Next up: two little runners go big. 2013 is marathon time. 

Penny