Rockville Centre 10k Review

I had high expectations for the Rockville Centre 10k.  It's been almost a month since my marathon PR so I had the months of training backing me up.  The race also happens to be on my turf.  These are the streets I run daily.  So, piece of cake, right?  Not exactly.

Thursday I went to the rec center to pick up my race packet and sign my daughter up for the 5k.  I was totally psyched when I saw my number #171.  I am somewhat superstitious and these numbers have always been unlucky ones for me.

I hate you number 7 and number 1!!  

Great, now I jinxed myself again!

My daughter, her two friends, and I got to the starting cone (because there was no line) in downtown Rockville Centre (right outside Starbucks and the movie theater) this morning a little after 9.  The forecast was for 46 degrees, but it felt like it was getting progressively colder the longer we stood outside.  When we arrived, we were the only ones on the street.  Slowly people started trickling in.  I met up with Freighbor and her husband.  According to her, the organizers were expecting almost 1,000 runners, between both races.  That's a good crowd.

The race official announced the countdown to the start.  Everybody and their mothers decided they would all start at the beginning.  Crunch time.  I tried to get somewhat toward the front, but it wasn't happening.  Finally, the race began.  We ran as a tight group for almost a mile.   I hit Mile 1 at 7:30.  This seemed about right.    Once it thinned out, I thought I could pick up the pace.  Not so much.  The 5k runners split from us, and the 10k runners headed north on Hempstead Avenue.  Mile 2 was just under 15 minutes.  Mile 3 was 22:30ish.  We were in the residential part of town.  At this point rather than speeding up, I thought, "It would be nice to drop out and walk home right now."  The one girl who was about twenty feet ahead of me for the first half suddenly took off out of sight.  Annoying.  We finally turned around and headed back on North Village Avenue to the finish.  I hit Mile 5 around 37:xx.  I thought, "Cool!  Maybe I'll finish under 45 minutes....oh wait...that DAMNED .2 MILES!!!!"  Sure enough, I crossed the finish at 47:04.  This is a PR by over two minutes for me, but slower than I anticipated.  My pace was 7:35.  I got 1st place in my age group, 12th out of 177 women (top 6th%), and 78th out of 413 (top 18th%).  Okay.  I'm ready to crank up my mileage again and I'm already looking for my next 10k (Ask me tomorrow morning while I'm lying in my warm bed if I want to "crank up my miles" and go run outside in the cold).

My daughter and her friends finished in 27:21.  This is a PR for her and 4 minutes faster than they expected!!