May 2016 Running Challenge

I've got a new 10km PR: 58:27!
My first sub-60 minute 10k, can you guess how happy I'm feeling right now?

Here's the race report, for those of you who like reading that kind of stuff. As usual, much too long, so read at your own risk ^^

Before the start:
When I signed up, I was convinced I could manage a PR under one hour (my previous 10k PR was 1:01:02). I started having my doubts about that before the start - the weather was so hot! 24°C (75°C), but it felt much warmer. Who organises a race that starts at 16:45 in the afternoon in the second half of May? And how stupid did I have to be to sign up for it?!
Well, I was there, I had paid for it, so I picked up my bib an hour before race start and found a shady place to wait. There was a 5k on the same route which started an hour before the 10k, so I hung out on the sidelines for a while to cheer for the 5k runners as they came in. 10 minutes before the start, I bought myself two bottles of water - one I drank, the other one I poured over my head with the idea that that would help battle the heat. I probably could have saved the money - by the time the gun went off, my hair and shirt were already dry again...

The first 5km loop - paces 5:31 - 6:11 - 5:58 - 5:56 - 5:46 min/km
Right after the start, I realised the course was not as flat as I had expected. I must have mixed the "perfectly flat course" I was expecting with some other race I read about, because this one didn't have any flat parts at all, it was rolling hills all the way.
I let the exitement of the start and the fact that the first kilometre leading out of the village was nearly completely downhill lure me into going out too fast. It was easy enough to correct for that during the 2km that followed - at least 1.5km of those were nearly completely uphill, and the hot weather was starting to get to me, so slowing down to get closer to my goal pace of "5:57 min/km or a little faster" happened nearly automatic. Actually, by the end of the third kilometre, I was ready to give up on my PR-plans, it was just so hot, running at my goal pace was a real struggle! The course was really beatiful, mostly leading through vinyards at that point, but I would have preferred at least a few trees every now and then...

Fortunately, we passed a farm house around 3.2km, where the family had set up what looked like an improvised aid station: they had a little table at the road side with three pitchers of water, and a little sprinkler set up next to it. If you wanted to drink something, you had to stop, drink straight from the pitcher and hand it over to the next runner. The people were apologizing that thay didn't have any cups - but I don't think anyone cared, we were all so grateful for the water!
Thanks to them, I felt refreshed enough that I was able to keep up the pace until the official aid station around 4.0km (the fact that this kilometre was all downhill certainly helped), where I grabbed two cups of water and walked long enough to drink them both. They had a lawn sprinkler set up as well, which was nice, even if the cooling effect didn't last long.

The next kilometre was a slight climb again, leaving the countryside and leading back into the village. Despite that, my pace here was a bit faster than goal pace again. The water stops helped, and even more of that, this stretch of the course came with the best feature of the entire race: the fire brigade had rigged a hydrant to spray water. And this was no mild drizzle, it was a real jet of water! Instead of skirting the edge like the runners in front of me, I ran straight through the centre. I was nearly blinded for a few seconds by the force of the spray, and afterwards I was completely drenched in cold water - freaking awesome!
There were maybe 500m between the hydrant to the end of the first loop, and after the mostly empty countryside, there were some spectators again, so this part of the race was really uplifting.


The second 5km loop - paces 6:01 - 6:22 - 5:55 - 5:51 - 5:24 min/km
The second loop was exaclty the same as the first, so this time around I already knew what to expect.
The distance between 6km and 7.5km was probably the hardest of the entire race - it was the same gently but near-continuous climb as on the first loop, the sun was still as merciless as before, and the field was so streched out, there wasn't a pack of runners surrounding me to pull me along. In my mind I had already split up the race into "just get to the nice people with the water at 8.4km, after that it's just a few hundred meters to the next water stop, and then a few hundred more to the awesome water hydrant, and then you are already almost at the finish line".
Around 7.5km, I caught up to two other runners. I was running slightly behind them and didn't see their faces or their bib numbers, so they are only know to me as "the girl with the black-and-pink shorts" and "the guy with the neon yellow shirt" I rather liked their pace, and having someone to follow was also nice, so I hung behind them past the two water stops.

Around 9km, as the road started the last gentle climb, black-shorts-girl began to slow down a lot, and yellow-shirt-guy switched to walking. So much for my pacers *sigh*
I left them behind, because I couldn't wait getting to the hydrant. It was as fantastic as the first time! It left me drenched to the skin and with a big smile on my face, because at that point I was well in line for a time below 59 minutes, and I knew that after that cold shower, there was no way anything would get between me and that PR!
Shortly after that, when one spectator shouted "300m to go", I gathered all the energy and went as fast as I could, making my last split the fastest of the entire race.

Since I started my watch a little too late (again! - I wonder if I'll ever learn...), I couldn't trust the numbers it was showing (58:21 for 9.98km, I knew there was a bit of time and distance missing). But I was sure it was a time below 60 minutes, and when they posted the results, that confirmed it: the chip time was 58:27