My official gun time was 40:15, and I started a bit back from the start line (there was no timing mat at the start). I clocked myself at 40:11.

I’ve been an inconsistent hobby jogger most of my life. Most years during Spring I will train a bit (~20 miles per week) for a local 10K (the BolderBoulder). This year I ran one of my faster times (43:45; my PR is 43:05) and then decided to keep running and do a proper marathon training cycle based on Jack Daniels' Plan A.

I’m 8 weeks into that training program (my goal marathon is in early November), and I’m already consistently running more miles than I have ever before, even while training for marathons in the past. To check my progress I signed up to run the Evergreen Town Race 10K with my dad and a friend of ours. I had an interval workout schedule for the weekend which I replaced with the race, but otherwise I didn’t reduce my mileage or taper in preparation for the race.

It is a downhill course that starts at 7,692' and descends over 500' (map). Runners are bused up to the start line in school buses, and then run down to the finish.

My goal was to take advantage of my recent training and the downhill to set a new 10K PR, or at least to beat my BolderBoulder time from earlier this year.

I planned to go out at 4:18/KM (43:00) pace, and then speed up if I was feeling good on the downhills. I’m so terrible at estimating my pace at the beginning of a race. I looked at my GPS watch after the first ~30 seconds and it said I was going 4:20/KM, so I sped up. We hit the first down hill and I tried to let my legs go as fast as they wanted with gravity. When I looked at my watch again I realized I was going way faster than I had planned.

But when I hit the second km at 4:04 and felt very comfortable I decided to keep that level of effort up. Worst case, I thought, was that I’d have to slow down for the last few kilometers but should still be well under my goal time.

As the kilometers went by I kept feeling comfortable; this is probably the first time during a 10K race that at the 5K mark I was surprised when I looked at my watch to see that I was going faster than I felt like I was going. At first I was nervous that by keeping up a pace so much faster than my goal, even with the downhill course, that I’d crash-and-burn. But I just kept telling myself to finish the current kilometer at the ~4:00/km pace effort and then I could slow down if I needed to — but I never needed to! Crossed the finish line at 40:15 (gun time). New PR (even if downhill)! The overall effort felt much easier than the 43:45 BolderBoulder I ran earlier this year.

The downhill no doubt was very helpful during this race, but it gave me confidence that I CAN break 40:00 on a flat 10K in the not-too-distant future (and also that I can break 20:00 5K which I’ve never done).

My next race is the Imogene Pass Run, a 17 mile mountain race that starts at 7,810' but then CLIMBS over 5,000' during the first ten miles to Imogene Pass before dropping back down (elevation profile). So that should be interesting.