My alarm went off correctly this time, and I left the house 1hr. 45 min. before the start. It's only 40 min. trip to Dulwich Park, but I wanted to give myself extra time. Well, the transition to National Rail took longer than I planned due to a ticket line and I missed my train by 1 minute! The problem with that is that National Rail trains run on half-hour schedule, so I had to wait 30 min. for the next one!! I made it to the race ok, but I was stressed out and there went my warmup, since I only had 10 min. before the start - barely enough time to put on my race number and retie my shoes. Oh well... the race started and I settled into a comfortably hard pace, which my Garmin said was about 7:22-7:25. Current pace on Garmin is not very accurate and can really fluctuate wildly especially with hills or even slight inclines, but the lap avg. pace is always precise, so that's what I used. This race used km markers rather than miles, so it was a bit strange, but I kept taking km. splits since that was all I had. This was a nice flat course, 3 loops around the park, some mild inclines and descents, but nothing major at all. Good PR course and the weather was good as well. Some running on sidewalks, with curbs and cobblestone stretches, but not too bad. So I have no excuse for a poor result. I started hurting right after 3km mark, and I knew then it's going to be a long day. Here are the splits: 2km - 9:10 (avg. 4:35) 3km - 13:50 (4:40) 4km - 18:37 (4:46) 5km - 23:16 (4:39) 6km - 27:59 (4:43) 7km - 32:58 (4:58) 8km - 37:30 (4:31) - this km may be short, and the previous one long. 9km - 42:18 (4:48) 10km - 47:08 (4:49) Total distance was measured at 6.27 by Garmin, so the course might have been a bit long. Still, I thought I was in better shape. Looks like all the missed runs and reduced/inconsistent mileage brought my fitness down a notch. My last 10K was in May on a similar, even faster, course and I ran 45:54 there, so this is quite a step down. I ran regular tempo runs at 7:40-7:50 pace but they didn't make a difference. Very disappointing. I'll try another 10K on 10/29 to see if I can improve. | 