The good news... My best 10K time so far and nearly 3 minutes faster than last year. More good news (sort of)… I crossed the finish line 45 seconds ahead of Kelsey even though she beat her previous best by 7 minutes. The bad news... I didn't come anywhere near my goal time. It was too warm again this year -- but I'm sure that my weight was the biggest issue. My legs were fresh. I had plenty of energy. I ran a consistent pace. But my fastest sustainable pace had me huffing and puffing in the red zone heart rate. To go faster I need to carry less weight. As I said in an earlier post - losing weight is my primary goal for next year.

Kelsey ran away from me at the start. I was sure that we wouldn't meet up again until past the finish line. Much to my surprise I caught up and passed her after the 5 mile mark. By that point she was exhausted, overheating and thirsty. She stopped for a drink at the last water station and I did not. I faded into the crowd of runners; she never caught up. Kel wants to sign up for next year. She was pleased with her 7 minute improvement. So was I. I only improved 11 seconds over my previous best time. So in 2020 Kelsey gets one more shot at beating dad in a 10K. After that she is graduated from college and will likely move far, far away. We both plan to keep up with the cardio until next time.

My official time 10K was 66 minutes 47 seconds -- 11 seconds faster than my 2017 time. My Garmin fitness tracker had me running 6.2 miles in 66 minutes 13 seconds. Here is what my Garmin says I did for splits:

Mile 1 pace: 10:00 min/mile
Mile 2 pace: 10:44 min/mile
Mile 3 pace: 11:11 min/mile
Mile 4 pace: 10:34 min/mile
Mile 5 pace: 10:50 min/mile
Mile 6 pace: 10:52 min/mile
Last .2 mile pace: 9:52 min/mile
Total time: 66:13
Overall average pace: 10:40

It was raining hard when we woke up. It rained hard as we traveled down to Richmond. It was raining when we got off the commuter bus near the starting line. It stopped raining as we walked to the starting gate and didn't rain at all during the race. It was 65 degrees and humid. By mile 3 I really wanted it to rain. I got off to a fast start, then did some overheating on the uphill climb in miles 2 & 3. Mile 4 was after the turn -- a nice mild downhill run. At miles 5 and 6 I was too warm again. I don't think that I'll ever do a summertime 10K. I just don't do heat very well.

All-in-all it was a good day and a good race. Kel was really into making sure that we crossed the starting line at exactly the same time. She was planning to take me down. I feel a little bad that she didn't do it. She was really in shape, but I don't think that she does heat very well either. I'll hope for cooler weather next year. I want another race - fair and square. But I want Kel to win.

Courtney's BF finished in 59 minutes 30 seconds. He didn't train for this at all. He had not done any running in over a year. Yep - that young dude is in good shape. Courtney and Kel's BF finished up at the same time -- 1 hour and 40 minutes after the start. They did some jogging -- but running is not their thing. They mostly just walked along and enjoyed the festivities. Everyone had a good time.

I posted a few race photos HERE on my Facebook page.

UPDATE: PLACEMENT STATS

I finished in 8,267th place out of 20,159 finishers (Top 41%)
I finished 331st out of 670 men in my age group (Top 50%!)
I finished 4,705th out of 8,290 for all men

There were 26,000 people signed up for the race. I guess that the rain and/or the heat played a roll in all those no-shows. They run the event rain or shine -- no refunds.