I sit here watching the Olympics and see these people finishing forth and saying, damn right that sucks. More on finishing places later.

Today was my first 10k and going in my goal was to finish and maybe get under 1 hour.

I didn’t stop my GPS watch for about 30 seconds after I finished and my chip time was 53:26. WTH?

A couple of things to note. First, I didn’t run with my iPhone with the Nike + app, instead I just used my iPod so I would get time splits if any kind. All I wanted was my music, no coach in my ear. Second, who put that hill at mile 3? They called it the heartbreaker…more like the air sucker. Third, I ran with my heart rate monitor, which you can see in red. I was impressed it never went above 170 bpm even up hill.

The first three miles were great. The weather was perfect, cool with no wind. There was a little uphill in the first half which quickly changed back downhill towards the start, where the 5k people joined in for about a mile or so. This really messed with some 10k people who started running too fast, where I really kept to the outside and just put my head down till we split apart again.

The hill came at a little past 3 miles and man, this hill took forever. It was 1.5 mile long and over 250 foot vertical gain in two stages. At the peak I walked about 20 yards to get my lungs back and to hydrate for the upcoming downhill. You could see forever which was awesome, but I wasn’t looking forward to this pounding.

You give up the elevation in about a half a mile, which then turned into the end of the lap at the beginning. I really tried to save some for the final 400 meters.

As always my gps had the run shorter than the advertised distance, but hey who cares, right?

I ran the McMillan and this pace would put me at right at 2 hours for my upcoming half marathon. Ha!!!! My goal is to finish that, not worry about time, but if this race is any indicator, I just might shock myself.

Oh and for some reason, the race organizers put 10 years in my age bracket of 35-44 in which I finished 4th. If they had a fat guy/Clydesdale group, maybe I would have won that, but all the other 3 guys were all under 40. Don’t they know there is age discrimination for over 40, not 35…sheesh. I did get a door prize of $5 gift card for some wings. Winner!