Discuss The First 10km Road Race That You Ever Ran.

Petersburg Virginia, used to have this point to point 10K..that was my first back in 1983, I think..I had been running since 77, but never raced until 83...

All Iremember is that it started I think at some elementary school and wound it's way up hills and down, into the middle of the town I think..

Then a bus took us back. It was great.

I think my time was 38:44.

Peachtree Road Race, Atlanta, 2004. I was in time group 9, so I had about 50000 runners ahead of me. I didn't get up to even a warmup pace until the third mile and was passing people easily the whole way. Wasn't really shooting for a specific time, and even the hills weren't that bad because I wasn't able to move really fast.

which skuj are you? the original or the new one?

Keep it coming! Age / era comparisons will be interesting if enough people post serious replies.

Thanks.

Darren Skuja

Posting at letsrun as Skuj since 2004.

http://www.cvrr.ca/cvrr-tuesday-track-workouts.php

Skuj wrote:

How old were you. What year was it. How was the race?

I believe mine was age 17. This was a legion race when I was in Gr. 11, (1965) involved high school runners, senior runners, etc. This was actually not 10 km (6.2 miles) but 6 miles even. No idea of my finishing time but somehow, I was 5th. overall.

Winner was a local runner who went on to become one of Canada's premier marathoners. He, at age 65? continues to race well in his age group. 2nd. place was another fellow who would later on become well known in running circles back East and would complete a few ultras as well as write articles re the old Voyageur Marathon. Unfortunately Norm was killed in a cycling accident 9 years ago.

Whew afer googling his name I never was aware of how involved this gentleman was with running as well as other things:

Actually not sure when my official 10 km debut happened on the roads though I had completed quite a few 10000 m track events, quite a loty of laps around the track I would say to myself, though not quite like my first marathon.

1980, Lindsay (Ontario) Milk Run (as it is now called).

I was an 800-1500 guy; my coach thought this would be good for strength.

I was 25 at the time; ran 32:45, thought the damn thing would never end.

Pottle Hill 10K 2002, labeled as new englands hardest 10k road race, rolling hills followed by a hill that feels like it never ends, i was 17 and had been running for a year, 40:13! Also was my first road race and longest race i had ever run.

This is a bizarre coincidence.

I just posted about the Lindsay Milk run as my first 10 k and then read your Norm Patenaude entry, killed coming back from that very run.

This is one of my favorite race memories. It was 1978, I was 20, and the previous spring I'd finished my 2nd year of college track. I was a somewhat disappointing season, which ended in disaster. I wanted to quit running. But I joined up over summer with all these really good milers who were at or had graduated from the University of Iowa. At the end of the summer they asked if I wanted to be on their team for a big 10k in Cedar Rapids, where the sponsor was planning to bring in a couple of ringers from Texas: Jeff Wells and John Lodwick.

We trained our assess off in the swealtering August heat. But race day dawned clear, not too hot, and fairly dry. The course was purported to be short by a couple hundred yards and Wells won in about 28:20 just a few seconds ahead of our unhearalded team leader who outkicked the more widely known Lodwick. The race was actually even written up in Track & Field News.

I rounded out the top 10 with a breakthrough 31:50--it took me another five years to match that pace for either 6 mile or 10k.

Skuj wrote:How old were you. What year was it. How was the race?

I was 17 years old. 1978. Anaheim, California. It was great!

My best friend and I were in great shape after the '78 XC season. We decided to run a 10K starting at Angels Stadium in Anaheim. It was a huge field, and we wanted to jog it, so we started back in the 7:00 mile pace. We both ran 36:22, and passed tons of people. It felt like a workout.

Now at age 46 I have to work hard to break 45 minutes...

Cowtown 10K a few years ago...48 min, forgot the seconds. Had fun!

I ran a 10k race before the start of grade 12 cross country four years ago. I was 17. My goal was to get under 40 minutes and I ran the first kilometre down a steep hill in 3:35. Whatever it was I ate before the race got to me, however, and I spent the last 7k looking for a washroom. I finished in 50 minutes. Whoever said it felt like the damn thing would never end was right.

The race was either the 1982 or 1983 San Jose Mercury News 10K when I was 12 or 13. I wasn't a runner then. It was a pretty big race with thousands of runners (maybe still is?), and my brother (a year younger than me) and I for thought it would be fun to try. We didn't train at all. I think I tried running 2 miles a few days before the race. I did give it my all in the race, but it took me 58 minutes.

I ended up running the race the next two or three years, with it being my only race of the year on basically no training. I ran 56 min. the second year, after I upped my training to something like two 2-4 mile runs in the week prior to the race, then 52 or 54? the third year. Because thousands of people, including relaxed looking moms pushing strollers and grade school girls would beat me, and I was really killing myself (and was looked incredibly ugly in the race photo), I didn't see myself ever becoming fast. I didn't have a concept of how much training could improve your time. I imagine this is how it is for most "fun runners".

I had always liked bikes and always rode around the neighborhood as a kid. Around 8th grade, my brother and I started stretching that out to 20-30 mile rides to explore the backroads in our area. I'm naturally competitive and finally tried HS cross country my jr. year because my brother had run as a freshman the year before and had OK results... and I wanted to beat him (turned out he got injured and never ran again after his freshman season). From my cycling experience, I had an inkling that I could be a better runner than my no-training 10Ks had shown. I ran 8 miles my first real training run, and 9 miles per day the rest of the summer, and by the time of my first HS race, I was already the #2 varsity runner...

Great thread.

Mine is veryy foggy...maybe 79 or 80 in Toronto with thousands of people. I chased a nice looking lady all the way to the line in 38-something, which was not very hard to run. I was 17-18. I don't know why I don't remember much about it, or why I wasn't killing myself. My first real road race event was a 20k in 78, so that is more memorable.

My first was in Huntington Beech (along the bike path;5K out and back) in 2003, I was 18.

I went into it with a 3M PR of 17:45. So I was aiming to break 40. The race goes off and I find myself in the lead group of 4. They slowly pulled away, but I wasn't that far behind trying to keep with 'em.

I go through the 3M split in 17:54, but still felt good at that point. In the last 3K it started really hurting, but I gutted through it and finished the 10K in 37:41. So I was pretty stoked with that time.

Went from having run only 1 3M race in sub 18, to doing 6:03's 6 times in a row. (Having a pack of runners to chase really helps) I ended up running a 5K race the next weekend and taking a minute off that record.

Good times!

Fincastle Days 10k, Fincastle Virginia. I was 13 and was woefully under trained for a brutally hilly race. I could run a 5k somewhere in the low 22s at the time but struggled to finish this in about 48 minutes. I chose the 10k over the 5k because I thought it would be less competitive. Despite my awful time I came in first in the 10-13 age group. I think there were 3 competitors.

I was 35years old when I ran the Top of the Rock 10K run at Fort Stewart, Georgia last year in 52:37. My training wasn't the greatest. The long run I ran before the event was 4miles. Anyway I start out maybe alittle too fast 5k 24:14. I kind of fall apart the last 5k lap. I am in the process of trying to run it again this year if time permits before we go to Iraq.

1982 - Orange Classic - Middletown NY - Shorter vs BR

I was 12, 6th grade had been running off/on for about a year..decided i wanted to run 50:00 or better...finished in 50:34, if only there were chip timing! haha..

my longest runs had been 5 miles, I could never get to 6....was dying going up the last hill to the fairgrounds before my dad came up alongside me (I thought he had run his own race but he just shadowed me from the start and stayed out of sight) and helped me in last k.....

it was a good start..great local race that pulled in the elites each year...

Mine was in the '70s and I don't remember the 70s. Sorry.