Race Date: 7.5.2011
Official Finishing Time: 38:49.66 chip time, 38:54.47 gun time
Official Overall Position: 56/1108 (finishers), which puts me in the fastest 5.05%
Race number: 942

Newport 10k

Well, this one didn’t go quite according to plan. I blame it on my recent work stress and lack of speed work. I wasn’t very confident on the day either. The weather was nice and sunny, maybe even too hot. It was easy to get to New Jersey via the PATH train from NYC, and the race was just next to the Newport stop. The course is mostly flat and certainly faster than the Central Park loop where I recorded my 10k PB in the Scotland Run. There were some twists and turns as well as rough bits though.

I was hoping to improve my PB of 37:41, or even sneak under 37min if I felt good, but I never really got into the race. My target pace was 3:40min/km, but I hardly even hit it on the first half of the race and I was really out of it after 5k (which I did in a respectable time, given my current 5k PB of 18:46). I wasn’t the only one to suffer after the half way mark though, because I kept overtaking people even though I was slowing down considerably.

Here are the splits:
1k 3:44
2k 3:40
3k 3:47
4k 3:41
5k 3:46 (5k in 18:38)
6k 3:52
7k 3:54
8k 3:54
9k 3:52
10k 4:12
Total: 10.17k in 38:50

Don’t ask me what happened on the last lap, I could’ve sworn that I ran faster than that! I did manage a sprint finish of sorts on the last 0.17k, but it looks like I was really struggling towards the end. Probably it had something to do with the fact that I knew it wouldn’t be a PB, or even anywhere close to sub 38min, so I gave up. Shouldn’t do that though, a race is still a race! Well, I’m not too disappointed, since sub 38min was my season’s target for 10k and I’ve already accomplished that.

Average heart rate was 174 bpm, average cadence 88 spm.

Not sure when my next race will be, as I haven’t booked anything before the Helsinki City Marathon in August, but there will probably be some smaller races in June/July. I’d like to do a half marathon before HCM anyway.

Official results here.
Garmin data here.