R.O.C. 10K

I headed over to Kemah on Saturday morning for the R.O.C. 10K and it went ok. But only ok. I mean, I finished the miles -- but they weren't pretty. I felt better at mile 8 of last week's 10-miler than I did at mile 4 of this week's 10K. Funny how running has good and bad days like that. The humidity got to me, that's for sure.

My Garmin read very long at 6.45 miles, but inspecting the track showed a lot of wobble, probably due to the overcast skies and partial tree coverage in some areas. The course was certified, so I'll call it 6.2 miles, even though the longer distance gave a much faster average pace! Heh.

Splits were all over the map, and a bit embarassing after last weekend's strong run. I ran the first mile with Melissa and Kelly, who were running their first 5K ever. They finished strong in just over 32 minutes, so congratulations girls! I stopped for water at the first station while they continued on. I never caught up to them. Maybe I got carried away with running with them for the first mile, but who knows. Here's the ugliness:

Mile 1 - 10:33
Mile 2 - 11:23
Mile 3 - 12:38 (was actually 1.1)
Mile 4 - 10:34 (was actually 0.9)
Mile 5 - 12:07
Mile 6 - 12:43
Final 0.2 - 2:21

Like I said, it was ugly. In fact, I'm pretty sure that is my worst 10K ever, by a long shot. But I got it done. I'm looking forward the USA 10-Miler, my next event, in a couple weeks and crossing my fingers for nice weather. If it's cooler, I will obviously have a better run. I've only done this race once before, in 2004, and clocked a 1:57 and change. This year I'd like to do about 1:53.