Race Report: Durham Quarter Marathon

A great day!

Full results
Final time: 51:45, pace: 4:55/km (55th/330, 14/42 in Men 30-39)

Start Line

A well organized event, had no problems at all registering. They should really consider brining in some porta-potties for the women, though... there was a line of about 50 women trying to use the mall facilities with 10 minutes before the start! Fortunately for me the men's room had no such issues.

The Course

The course starts by winding through a ravine park on multiuse trails. They are a bit narrow, but once we got about 1K in it spread out enough that it wasn't a problem. This part is generally downhill, a nice way to start.

The path comes out of the ravine at 5K, and that's the end of the downhill! After a short (but grueling) hill climb (and down the other side!), you end up on city streets through a quiet residential area, and it's flat or gradually uphill for the rest of the run.

Very pleasant course.

My Race

This was my first time doing 10 and 1s in a race. That is, running 10 minutes, walking 1 minute.

At 1K, either there was no sign or I just missed, so I was a bit lost on my pace at the start. I hit the 2K mark at 8:55, which was 40 seconds faster than I should have been. I probably went out a bit too fast, but downhill so it's not as off pace as it sounds. Things were feeling good so I kept it up.

My first walk break just happened to be right at the water station - perfect! It felt a little weird walking while everyone else was running, that was a first for me, but despite my impatience I kept walking for the full minute.

The rest of the first 5K flew by, when I left the treed path I was a minute and a half ahead of where I needed to be.

The rest of the run I just pushed as hard as I felt I could maintain for the 10 minutes between walk breaks. They really did make a difference, I could feel myself fading towards the end of the 10min running portions, but after the break I felt recharged and fresh.

After my last walk break at 43:00, I found my second wind and ran hard to the finish... I haven't seen the official results, but by my watch I finished at 51:39, about 50 seconds quicker than my goal time! So I'm really happy with that.

The 10 and 1's were fantastic. I was the only one I saw doing them, although I'm sure those further back probably were too. I really doubt I would have been any faster without them. My personal best 10K time is a little weird, it was in November in pretty imperfect conditions, but the pace there was 5:12/km. Today my pace was under 5:00/km.

Split Times

This is more for my own personal record keeping than anything I'd expect other people to be interested in... but here it is anyway. :)

The target times are based on a pace band I generated here, that accounts for walk breaks.

KM	Target Time	Actual Time	Difference	Pace/km
1	04:48
2	09:36	08:55	00:41	04:28
3 *	14:55
4	19:43	18:16	01:27	04:41
5*	25:02	23:27	01:35	05:11
6	29:51	28:31	01:20	05:04
7*	35:10	33:47	01:23	05:16
8	39:58	39:09	00:49	05:22
9*	45:17	44:38	00:39	05:29
10	50:00	49:35	00:25	04:57
10.5	52:30	51:39	00:51	04:08

* - denotes a kilometer that included a walk break.

My pace was supposed to be 4:48/km on kilometers without breaks, and 5:19/km on kilometers with it. Interestingly I mostly hit my pace on the walk break kilometers, but not on the others. I'm not sure yet what this means, but I did feel a bit of fade towards the end of those 10 minutes of running.

I didn't get under 5:00 through the middle to late portion of the race. I think this is partly due to it being slightly uphill, but also I felt quite fatigued. I had enough for a really good push to the finish, which felt great!

All in all, a great day, and assuming everything lines up right next year I'll likely do this race again!