Eastleigh 10K Race Recap

Hey! I did another 10K!

I thought this as a cool part of the free t-shirt! Gotta love race t-shirts. This does not do the color justice. It looks in the pic that it's school bus yellow. It's actually florescent highlighter yellow. I'm not even kidding.

So I'm a bit late in posting this. I started my new job last week so I took a week off from writing until I could get into a good routine. (Side note, perfect time to start a new job in England. 4 day week. 4 day weekend due to TWO bank holidays. And then another 4 day week. I'm spoiled.)

I'll keep the recap short and sweet.  

Time was 1:04:28.

No PR, but overall I think this was the best 10K I've run out of my 3. I'm counting it as a personal PR (personal personal record? Whatever.) for several reasons.

Even though my time was about a minute slower than the last 10K I did, I think this course was a lot more accurate for distance. Also, all of my splits in this race were pretty consistent. I didn't really negative split, but I didn't positive split either. My splits kind of looked like a bell curve to be honest. (Bell Curve... What a dork... Statistics was always my best subject in high school/college!)

There was a hill between miles 2 and 3 if I remember correctly, and I felt like I conquered that like a champ. It wasn't particularly steep, but it was long and gradual. And honestly, sometimes those are worse. But I powered forward and felt strong going up it.

Oh and not to mention I did this entire race without music! I didn't want to do it; I really like running with music! And I always thought I was so dependent on my music to keep me going. But everyone was saying how strict they were with the "no music or headphones" rule. So I didn't use my iPod for fear of getting disqualified. And I didn't hate it! It's good to know I can run 6.2 miles without some jams keeping me going. 

Lastly, I loved this race because over 130 members of my running club ran it! We took a big group photo before it started. Even though I'm in the slower portion of the club, it didn't really feel like it mattered. And that felt good. Other members were constantly cheering everyone else on, especially at the end. It was some of the best camaraderie I've ever seen.

Do you like running racing with people you know or do you prefer to go at it alone? Do you run with or without music?