Today's 10K? Meh.

Today, I ran the Rock 'n Roll San Jose 10K.

It was fine.  Not great.  But I finished.  Any time you finish a race, I think you have to acknowledge that it's a good thing.  So Yay! 

I took the first mile by effort and finished in 9:24.  Things Looked good.  It wasn't actually as hot as I'd worried it would be.  I figured I'd slow a bit over the miles, but hoped to cross the finish line with a sub-10 min/mile average pace.

Mile 2 was 10:04.  Not great, but I wasn't pushing it or even looking at my Garmin except at the mile splits, so I wasn't too concerned.  I figured I just needed to increase my effort level.

Mile 3 I walked through the water station, and afterwards, I started looking at my Garmin, trying to pick up the pace to compensate for the break.  While I did get the pace to decrease over the course of the mile, I failed to get it below 10 minutes. (10:28 including the water walk break). 

At this point, I figured anything sub-10 min/mile average was the goal where I should focus.

Except. 

Except, my belly was not on board with this plan.  I needed a porta-john, and there weren't any at any point in Mile 4 (10:46).

The situation was getting dire, and I was very uncomfortable.  After the Mile 4 marker, I did 0.22 painful miles at a struggling pace of 11:29/mile until I finally saw a porta-john.

I stopped, and stood in a line of about 10 people who I assume were all wondering (like me) what the HELL happened with the lack of toilets on Mile 4.

5 minutes and 44 seconds later, my heart rate had slowed, my legs had cooled down, and I was back on the course, trying to rally.

I had visions of busting out 2 hard miles at full effort.  Instead, I put up a 10:15 mile followed by a 10:41 mile. 

Thanks to the long stop, there was no one running near me for those last 2 miles that was anything close to my pace.  And, I just couldn't motivate to go any faster.  I was passing people consistently the entire time (and was being passed by the leaders of the half marathon blazing in the lane to my right on their final mile), but I couldn't seem to find a way to pass the folks in my lane *faster*.

Oh well.  It was a solid run (AVG 10:18/mile for the running portions says the Garmin).  Certainly a good workout. 

Total mileage for the week was a good 33.4 (including some hiking and trail running with local bay area runners at a park on Saturday followed by a delicious brunch).  I'm looking forward to my next 10K, which is a trail run.