Joe Kleinerman 10k Race Report

Today was the Joe Kleinerman 10k race in Central Park.  As I posted the other day, I thought I had a fair shot at my PR for the 10k distance.  This was based on the notion that my PR is around 8:30 pace, and I raced 5 miles last week at 8:27 pace.  However, in the end, the PR was not meant to be.  I missed it by 43 seconds, and look forward to finding another shot at it.  My finishing time was 53:26, and my PR is 52:43.  The weather was not a factor, at least for me.  It was 30 degrees with a little bit of a wind.  Not bone chilling cold, and no discernible big winds to deal with.  I much prefer this to the opposite condition, which is 70’s and humid that you might find in early June.

While I was able to maintain an 8:34 pace for the first 3 miles, the first 2 miles had significant hills, harlem hill and the rolling hills on the west side, which was definitely tougher than what was in the first 2 miles in the Prospect Park race last week.  It simply took too much out of me, and I then lost 45 seconds in the next 2 miles.  I actually felt good cresting cat hill and had a good second wind in that section of the park.  The only hope I had was that giving it my all would result in something similar to the 7:52 I ran in the last mile of the race in Prospect Park.  However, my 6th mile was 8:18, and I knew PR effort was done.  I took water once, in the 4th mile, which was part of why that mile was slow compared to the rest.  Here are my splits:

• Mile 1 – 8:41
• Mile 2 – 8:23
• Mile 3 – 8:37
• Mile 4 – 9:07
• Mile 5 – 8:47
• Mile 6 – 8:18
• Mile 6.2 – 1:35

Not to say I’m unhappy.  I’m actually very happy with the effort. I’m happy that despite pushing very hard over the first 3 miles, and then hitting a rough spot, I was able to recover nicely, power up Cat Hill, and run a very strong last mile, which was actually my fastest of the race.  It encourages me to think that I could PR the distance with another few weeks of speed work.  I likely will not race 10k for awhile, as there are none upcoming on the NYRR calendar, and I’d have to search elsewhere.  Also, I have lots of longer distances races planned for early next year.

As a side note, it seems to me that NYRR runs many fewer winter races than they used to.  I can recall a time when there were winter races almost every weekend, but there are only 2 races each in Jan and Feb.  That is too bad.  Probably a result of the parks department being stingy with how the park is used, and the effort required by NYRR to put on these races, that have grown so much in recent years.

Anyway, after 2 consecutive short distance races, time to turn the page and focus back on my marathon training.  First Light marathon is 5 weeks from today.  My last long run will likely be in 2 weeks.  The biggest problem I have right now is extreme tightness in both of my calves.  Interestingly enough, it bothered me more yesterday when I was running slow, and this morning in a slow warmup, than it did in the hard effort of the race.  It clearly is not holding me back, but I need to be careful with it to ensure it doesn’t become a bigger problem.  Maybe time to find The Stick or a foam roller, to work it through.