First Road 10k

I had a very busy, fun-filled weekend in Oregon. I ran in my first road 10k, too, in a town called Estacada (thanks Olga!). I'll get this 39+ minutes part of the long weekend out and done with so I can share some of the happenings of the rest of my 4+ days in a different post. It was freezing at the start of the 10k and there were 200 to 300 hundred people waiting anxiously to begin. I had no idea where to place myself in the crowd, so I started in the back of the first third of runners. It took me two miles before I broke a sweat. The race snaked along the Clackamas River for the first 4, or so, miles. Between mile 4 and 5, the course climbed from the river up to a highway. It was a long cruise from there to the finish line into town. These were my splits:

• Mile 1 = 6:30
• Mile 2 = 6:22
• Mile 3 = 6:21
• Mile 4 = 6:18
• Mile 5 = 6:33
• Mile 6 = 6:01
• Finish (.2 miles) = 1:14

I really had no clue what pace to run, so I just slowly picked up the pace as I continued with the run. Before the race, Olga told me I would break 40 minutes and I told her that was nuts. Because my watch was set up only to see my splits, I had no idea what my finish time was going to be until the last few hundred feet when I saw the race clock. The cool weather saved me during this run. The bonus was that I PR'd--haha!