I completed my first 10k run this weekend. It was a great day for it. Warm and sunny in the morning. My unofficial time was 1:08:15 or so, higher than I wanted. Also, I stopped and walked for about a quarter mile, something I didn’t want to do. But I finished and that’s a place to start.

10k is 6.2 miles. The first 4 miles were ok. I was maintaining a pace of under 10 minutes per mile which is where I was hoping to be. At the 3.5 mile point I decided to save some energy till the end and scoped out where I was going to start pouring it on to make up some time. That never happened. A mile later I was walking. The reason was that I overheated. The reason for that is that I didn’t properly hydrate the day before or that morning so my body wasn’t equipped to handle the heat. The race started at 9AM, a bit late, especially for a 10k, and before 10 the sun was up and the temperature was rising. Ok, it’s April, it isn’t that hot, but it felt hot after running for 45 minutes. When I finally made it to the 5 mile mark, they had bottled water. I rinsed my mouth two or three times and dumped some on my head. From there I felt better.

So important lesson learned, drink water, listen to your wife, don’t eat potato chips the night before. I’m going to find another run in about a month or so and try it again.