Race Recap: Race for Makueni and Mid-Land 10ks

Hello friends. It sure has been a while. I have been really busy – in the beginning of October, I stood up in my best friend’s wedding. And just like the last time I stood up in a friend’s wedding, my training and eating went :::whoosh!::: right out the window! I hardly ran at all the first few weeks of October… but since I was planning to run a half marathon in November I knew I had to get back at it and run a race. So I signed up for a 10k race in Lansing and was able to spend some time with my family, too since my sister lives there.

To say I was feeling unprepared for this race would be an understatement. Like I said, I barely ran at all in October. And I hadn’t run an official 10k in over a year. But people kept reminding me… dude… you ran a 10 mile race. And not just any 10 mile race, but the Crim, a really challenging 10 mile race! So what’s 6.2 miles?!

The Race for Makueni was a very small race, and only a couple handfuls of people were doing the 10k. That made me even more nervous, because although I know the race is only against myself, I really did not want to come in last. But hey, the race fee was super affordable and it fit into my training schedule for the half marathon. So run I did!

I decided to do run/walk intervals of 4 minutes running and 2 minutes walking. I was pleased with my timing as I ran. The weather was my favorite running weather – it was cold, but it was sunny, and it warmed up nicely during the race. The course ended up being short according to my GPS app, but oh well – I didn’t care – because I definitely got a PR!!! My official result was 1:11:20, average pace of 11:30/mile. According to my GPS app I only ran 6 miles… my pace was 11:58/mile… STILL a PR!!

So fast forward a few weeks… my training still isn’t going great. I go on a road trip with my friend and do a little bit of running but not much. And I catch a cold after my road trip (which I still have!). The week of my half marathon is upon me… and I am so conflicted. Part of me desperately wants to do this half marathon. This race has been 2 years in the making. I backed out of the race completely a year ago because of some very unfortunate personal issues. I wanted so badly to rock this half marathon, my very first half marathon, the same weekend as the year before that wasn’t so great. But my last long run was more than a month ago. And I was sick, and not getting any better. I ran 4 miles during the week before my planned half and the next day I was wrecked. I finally made the decision to switch to the 10k… I did not want to hurt myself with poor training or make myself even sicker.

I had originally planned on run/walking the race because I was sick and didn’t want to totally wear myself out. Then I picked out a couple of girls to pace with and felt pretty comfortable. I kept up with them until the 10k turnaround. My pace slowed down and I started doing run/walk intervals. The weather was once again perfect – cool but sunny, and didn’t get too warm during the race. I wish I would have kept up with the girls that I had originally paced with, but I still rocked it! My official time was 1:14:27, 12:00/mile. My GPS app had me at 6.29 miles, so a pace of 11:52/mile. So according to my GPS app, it was a 10k PR!

Overall, I’m super proud of both of my races. I haven’t run an official 10k race since March 2014, and even back then when I ran my first 10k I felt like I had found my new favorite distance. I was super nervous for both of these 10ks, though, for some reason. But once again… I just love the 10k distance!!