59:17

Initially appeared on vox.com on 6/29/2009.

This is disappointing.

Considering that my last 10k was at least 3 months ago, i expected at least some improvement.  Granted, i may have been asking too much to shave a full minute off my PR, but to actually come in SLOWER by 25 seconds... yeesh.  At least i can still do it under 60 minutes.

Since the moment i crossed the finish line i've been coming up with excuses, which i will decline to mention here (i am trying to teach my son not to whine, and the best way to teach is by example).  The bottom line is that i wasn't able to reach my goal and i have to train a little harder (with a focus on speed) for the next race.  More hills!  More lactate threshold workouts!  More tempo runs!  Fartlek!

One thing i wonder about is whether or not this signifies that i'm past the n00b phase.  I've been running consistently for almost a solid year  now (sporadically for around 2 years) and apparently am not deriving any more benefit from the bara-bara (anything goes) approach to running. I absolutely refuse to believe that this is my personal plateau; while i'll never qualify for Boston, i do hope to to 26.2 at 9:00 at some point in the future.  Let's see if a few months of planned workouts helps.  I've got a few more races (albeit 5Ks) for the season, and hope to hit my peak with the Grand Rapids Half Marathon in October.