Race Report: Nike Human Race 10K

6.3 miles in 1:22:16 (avg pace 13:04)! This is a distance PR for me and I did much better than I expected. But let's start at the beginning.

While my city was not one of the official Nike+ Human Race 10K locations, the Finish Line store at the Mall at Millenia organized a free group fun run for us to participate in this historic event. My official 10K that I've been training for will be in October, so I treated this as a training run. After last weekend's painful 5 mile run, I did not know what to expect.

I will be turning 30 and entering a new age bracket on Wednesday (9/3), so last night we celebrated my birthday with my family. We started the evening at Giordano's and loaded up on carbs with some yummy pizza, ravioli, salad, and lots of bread. Then we played 18 holes of glow in the dark mini golf, and we were in bed and asleep shortly after 10 p.m. We spent the night at my parents since they live closer to the Mall.

We woke up at 5:30 a.m., got ready, ate a banana and were on the road by 6 a.m. As I hoped, the free race shirt was the official Nike Human Race tech shirt (pictured above), and I am absolutely in love with it. We had to wear it for the event, and I was a bit concerned because I prefer to run in a singlet rather than a shirt with sleeves, but it was great.

Due to the store opening late and the amount of people attending needing to sign in and get shirts, the race actually started closer to 8 a.m. The route consisted of running 1/2 a mile, then 5 loops around a lake, then back out to the start. I was a little worried that the late start would mean it would be too hot and humid, and that the route would be hell, but the route proved to be great and the lake provided a nice breeze. I was sure to keep hydrated with my water bottle and the water stop at the end of each loop.

I decided to run/walk this from the beginning since the goal here was to finish and just cover the distance. I walked 30-60 seconds after each 1/4 mile or so (that works out to 3/1 or 4/1 ratio). This worked out great. My pace was fantastic and I finished the run feeling good and strong. I am thrilled with my time, since I was expecting it taking me closer to 1.5 hours, and Jason only beat me by 10 mins. Most importantly, I was not last! I even had mostly negative splits:

Since this was a little long and my first attempt at the distance, I'm hoping I can finish Disney's Race for the Taste in 1:15 or less. I'll have a bit more practice and miles under my belt by then, and I know I didn't really push myself that much today. However, I have to remember that the conditions are always different, but I can't imagine it will be more hot/humid than today.

I'll probably follow a similar run/walk plan for that race, though I may run every 1/2 mile instead of every 1/4 mile. I am not sure though, because taking the more frequent walk breaks does allow me to run that much faster. My running segments were almost all under 13 and I even got down to 8-10 paces. And the best part is that it almost felt effortless.

I can't wait until my next 5K on 9/13. I'm going to push myself to try to break my PR and run a sub-38 5K.

Did anyone else run the Human Race? How did you do?