I was not expecting this course to be so hilly! It was out and back, with the 10k being 4 laps, including a pretty big up and down hill near the start/finish. (Fortunately it was a beautiful little course, otherwise mentally it would have been a drag.) J wanted this to be a 10/10 effort; she had estimated my completion time at 53 min; I just wanted to finish sub 1 hr. (My finishing 10k time this year had been 1:03 hrs for both previous 10ks.) I was dismayed when I saw how undulating this course was. I maintained the cadence I’ve been practicing even on the uphills: while it shot my watts up to almost 300, it still allowed me to recover uphill. I then ran my heart out on the downhills and flats. This is a COMPLETE 180 from how I used to run just 8 months ago. It was absolutely a 10/10 effort: developed a stitch in my side after powering up the one hill for the 3rd time, which made it hard to breathe, but managed to slow breathe my way out of it, which allowed me to fly on the way back for the final time. This is the highest HR average I’ve ever sustained for this long, with average watts that were HIGHER than my running FTP (240 watts was my FTP; average today was 254!) and an average 9:19 min mile pace, which is the fastest average I’ve ever sustained for this long. Finally: this is the fastest 10k I’ve ever done, in training or practice; I achieved my sub-1 hr goal.

It would have been even faster if I hadn’t missed the turnaround cone on the 3rd lap, adding 0.10 miles to my total!