Sunday, March 30, 2008

New Personal Best!!!

Distance: 10K
Weather: 37º
Humidity: 25%
Wind: 8mph

I am so psyched!!! I did the Scotland 10K today and I broke my own personal best by 1:05!!!

I was a bit trepidacous being that this was my first official race of the year. (And really it was my first long run since my schedule was pretty nuts.) I had some doubts as to how well I could do, and I figured I'll go slow and push if I felt like I had it. Grace and I met up at the bag check and jogged our way to the starting line. But once the race started, I fell into a nice groove. It was a bit chilly and I was glad to be wearing two base layers under the wind jacket.

As usuall Grace tried to keep my pace but she has a thing for hills and blasted off after the first mile. I chugged along and popped in my new ipod shuffle, (a motivation gift from Chris to start running again).

The course was one entire loop around Central Park, a loop that I knew well. We went clockwise, so Harlem Hill was downhill. After warming into my stride for the first two miles I felt really good and decided to pay attention to the tree tops and little else. The upbeat music I selected helped as well. At mile 3 downed a Gu, and that buoyed me all the way to mile 5 where I forced myself to go faster on the downhills and not slow down on the uphills.

At that point I told myself to go faster if I can and sped up until I rounded the last curve. The finish line coincidentally was placed where the NYM finish line was, so that helped. I had Paula Radcliffe on my mind as I hauled as fast as I could manage. When I saw the time at mile 6, I thought there would be a slight chance that I'd break my record so I left it all on the course and hauled butt to the finish.

Came home just now to see what my time was I am estatic! My new 10K PB is now 1:14:48. Man I am sooo happy! What a great first race of the year!

10 comments:

E said...

Congrats on your new PB! Way to go!

Susan said...

WAY TO GO LISA!!!!! Man oh man what a comeback!!!!

You're on your way now! That half marathon will be here before you know it. Go girl! :)

MarathonChris said...

Congrats on the new 10K PB!!! :-) What a way to start out the year!

Maddy said...

Great Job Lisa! And what a way to run your first race of the year!

ShirleyPerly said...

Lisa, I'm sorry I didn't know you were racing this weekend too! CONGRATS on your PR. Nice way to kick off the 2008 race season!!

peter said...

A PR first race of the year! You 'n Paula! Congrats on the great race and time. Sounds like Grace had a nice run too.

Nancy said...

OH MY - I just did one too and we so could have ran it together. How cool.

NICE WORK!!

CewTwo said...

PR! PR! What a fun way to start the year!

Congratulations, Lisa!

CewTwo said...

Hello? Hello?

Is my friend, Lisa, still out and about?

Susan said...

Are you doing the race on May 3rd?