I ran in the Aflac Iron Girl 10K this morning. It was hot, hot, hot (well.... not as hot as where Alissa and Jill live, but it was still HOT). It was around 80 degrees when we started at 7:30. There was no marine layer, so the sun was beating down as well... Even with the heat, I felt like I had a very strong run.
However, it is all a bit confusing. When I crossed the finish line, my watch said 59 minutes. NO WAY. There is no way that I ran 9:30 per mile. I know I was going faster than that. I really pushed myself. My Nike+ said that I ran 6.7 miles. I forgot to stop it until I was past the finish line (oops) but not a 1/2 mile past! The first thing Jen said to me was "was that longer than 10K????" We asked the first person with a Garmin what they had. The first girl rolled her eyes and said, "it was LONG. 6.55 miles!" The second person we asked looked like a runner. She told us that she measured 6.54 miles and she "ran the tangents," which apparently is the most accurate route.
So...... I am choosing to believe that my Nike+ is still as accurate as it has been all along. Here is what it said:
Distance: 6.7 miles
Time: 59:34
Pace: 8:52/mile
According to Nike+ and double checking the splits through RunnerPlus, I ran 10 km in 54:48!!!! That blows my PR out of the water. In fact, according to my Nike+, today I had my best split times for 10k (54:48), 5K (27:05) AND mile (8:35). If I divide my time by the distance of 6.55, I get a time closer to 55:48 (a bit over 9 min/mile), which is still a GREAT time for me.
I just checked the results page for the race and it shows that I ran it in 1:00:54, which would be the gun time :-(. We had chips! Had I known that the chips wouldn't record when we crossed the start line, I wouldn't have started at the back of the pack. Jen and I were all the way to the back because we didn't want to deal with the crowd at the front and we were chatting with some of the other women. I won't do that again. I guess these chips don't always work?? I hope that the race organizers recognize their timing mistakes (distance and start time). If not, I guess I just have to put a personal asterisk* by this race. It is very disappointing not to have the race results show how well I did. I ran this race last year (the course was different this year) in 1:01:11. It is impossible that I only improved my time by 15 seconds after running a freaking marathon.
So that is my rambling post about the highs and lows of today's race. I am going to try to focus on the highs of what I believe to be true--- that I ran my best race ever--- even if the official results don't show it. But I can't help be a little bummed.....
3 comments:
I say go ahead and believe you've got that PR, even if it's just in your head! I think some races are organized by people who don't always know the best way to plan this.
I say this from experience, I organized a 5K several years ago for a fundraiser. I was thrown into this role, even though I had now history or background with running. I was so frustrated with the process, I started trying out races myself. If I had been the runner that I am now and had participated in my 5K, I would have been a very vocal complainer!
I would love to run an IronGirl. My friend did the triathlon they held here in Vegas, but I'm not a swimmer & biker, so that's not really my thing! Maybe someday...
I ran the 10K also! I don't know my official time yet, but according to my watch I finished in 1:10ish. I'm impressed with your time.
Hot day but fun!!!
Holy crap, Lisa. Killer times! What's up with the long race course?? I'm not saying that all local races need to be certified, but that is a pretty big gap from where it should be. Pretty poor if you ask me.
I have noticed at most of the local races around here, the chip does not record the starting time, just the finish. It really makes no sense to me. Why record one if you are not going to record the other? I figured it was a cost thing. Again, it doesn't make sense.
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