Yesterday afternoon I ran the Dallastown Wildcat 10K, the second YRRC Winter Series race that I’ve entered this year. Although the race was my 12th race overall, but my first ever 10K race… so I definitely had some nerves/anxiety going into it.
Here’s how M.C. Helsabeck described the race in the York Daily Record:
It is time for the third race in the York Road Runners’ Club Winter Series, and I won’t lie to you, this one is not easy. In fact, some local runners make sure to do the course once in a while because it, “builds character,” said Jan Workinger of the YRRC.
The Dallastown Wildcat 10K takes place Saturday, and it will start at Dallastown Area High School. In between there are two tough hills to climb: Park Street (a half-mile climb in the fourth mile) and Blymire Road (a one-mile climb to the finish). That final hill is a beast when you are tired.
Mix in some cloudy skies, slight breeze, and freezing 28 degree temperatures and you’ve got yourself a challenging race.
I’d say there were about a hundred people there or so, a slightly smaller crowd than was at Spring Valley a couple of weeks ago.
We lined up at the starting line in 28 degree weather under mostly cloudy skies at about 12:15 PM… and were off.
I felt everyone accelerating around me, so much so that I found myself doing a 6-7 minute/mile pace into the quarter mile mark. That’s way too fast for me, so I slowed it down and tried to settle into a reasonable 10K pace. Luckily the first 1.3+ miles were almost all downhill.
The first major hill started at the end of mile 3 and went well into mile 4. That was tough and took a lot out of me. There was a water station at the 4 mile mark that I took advantage of and was able to get a quick burst of speed going downhill to make up some lost time. Unfortunately, the hill that I enjoyed running down at the beginning was also the final leg of the race. By that time I was just about spent and struggled to make it to the top. From there it was a short sprint to the finish.
According to my Garmin, I covered 6.19 miles in 58:29.49 (9:27/mi pace) with an average speed of 6.3 MPH and a max speed of 11.7 MPH. My 1-mile splits were 7:12, 8:47, 9:40, 10:04, 9:53, and 11:07, with the last 0.19 at a 9:01/mi pace. Looking at the finish line photos, it looks like the clock said 58:31 when I crossed. Either way, that’s a PR for me, beating my previous (unofficial) PR of 1:00:26.
Just like at one time running a 5K in under 30 minutes was a major goal of mine, breaking the 1 hour mark for a 10K is a big accomplishment for me. The fact that it was on a non-trivial course makes it have that much more legitimacy for me.
I feel like this one’s a PR to be proud of.
Good work John. Be proud of all these accomplishments!
Great work… a PR on a tough course. Awesome.
Congratulations on beating the 1 hour mark. Its always a great accomplishment for any runner to run in less than an hour. My first and only 10k so far was run in 84 minutes - appalling I know! (smile) But my target was to run in under 90 minutes and at least I achieved that. Working on cutting that time by a reasonble margin in June this year when I run my next 10k.
Hey Calabar Gal! Thanks for the comments.
Sounds like you are well on your way to shaving more time off your 10K. It’s a fun race distance. Good luck! :)