This morning I ran the The Medved Lilac 10K, barefoot-as-usual. I actually met one other barefoot runner, Carl, who said that he also knows a third guy who looks a little like me named Mike. Anyway, this was my first 10K — about 6.2 miles. I have been averaging 4.5 miles 4 days a week, and recently added a loop one day a week that increases it to 5.2 miles. The 10K, therefore, is the farthest I've run. I decided to hold back and run slowly to make sure I was doing okay. I turned a 1:02:50 official time (10:08/mile) — it's just 3 minutes or so longer than twice my past 5K times so my pace was right on. The competitive part of the race wasn't my strong suit: I came in 966 of 1,258 overall and 66th of 77 other runners in my age group. I finished with lots of energy to spare so I could have run it a bit faster, although I probably wouldn't have moved up much in ranking even if I did. I also felt very good afterward: not short on energy, but also not sore at all.
Running the Medved Lilac 10K
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