Real David H.

I haven’t raced two 10ks in a year since 2007, both of which came within a few months of starting my blog. I’ve been pretty upfront at times that I just don’t like to race that distance — go out too fast and you’ll fall flat in the second half; start too slow and you can’t make up any time.
After I really pushed through all my miles Saturday, that way of thinking really doesn’t make sense. Plus, before this past weekend, I had only raced in five 10ks, with one of them being a wild off-road adventure, so that sort of doesn’t count. Simply put, I’m extremely inexperienced with 10ks.

So tonight I signed up for another 10k — the Central Virginia Kidney Association Memorial Day 10k, held in Lynchburg, Va. I ran this race in May2007, which was my first ever race report on the blog (which at the time was under a completely different name). Tonight is the first time I’ve looked at that post in a while — it’s great to read it and see where I’ve come since then.

As I take a brief look back, it gets me excited for what is to come. I know I’m a better runner than I was then, so I hope I can tackle those hills and beat my time of 49:49 back then. If the race was today, I’m not sure if I could. This course is drastically different than what I did this past weekend with some major hills — including a nice gradual uphill for probably about a half mile — so I have some work ahead of me in the next several weeks.

As I look ahead to the summer, I’m keeping my eye on local races that I’ve done in the past, including a 5 miler and a half marathon that I did last summer. While I will be focused on marathon training come July or so, I also want to focus on getting faster. Doing community races will help. For now, though, I’m focusing on this next 10k.