Yasss Queens 10K

Queens 10K Race Recap

What: Queens 10K
When: June 16
Where: Flushing Meadows Corona Park
Who: Two runners looking for a little redemption

After a challenging finish at the United Half Marathon this past March (despite earning our best half marathon time) and bonking the Airbnb Brooklyn Half Marathon just before mile 11 (walked the last 2-ish miles and still managed to finish a minute behind our PR), we were jonesing for a solid race and strong finish. Enter: the Queens 10K.

Our goal: set a PR and run a sub-60 10K. We haven’t run a lot of 10Ks, but our previous best was in the 1:06 range at last fall’s Runner’s World Half Festival. So a sub-60 was definitely in striking distance. Since Brooklyn last month, we took two weeks off (one intended, one unintended because I got sick) and focused our training on running consistently during the week. Throughout May, there was a great lack in consistent training (and perhaps a little dip in motivation) and we knew we needed to correct it.

The plan: wake up at 5am to get our two weekday runs in together. Sounds like a crazy plan for this former (though still sometimes) night owl. For the last three weeks, we’ve successfully gotten up at 5am to get our runs in (it’s also been incredibly helpful in beating the wicked summer heat and humidity). So last Saturday when the 5am wakeup call rolled around, I was like “no problemo!” We ran this race with the New York Road Runners’ Team for Kids group, each of us fundraising $100 to support the organization’s youth running programs. Check out this neon action:

The race: quick, steady, and flat. The temperature wasn’t too bad by our 8:15am race time, but the humidity (sneaky little thing) crept up as the morning went on. We’d inadvertently left our fuel belts at home and had to rely on the water stations; not awful as there were plenty of them, but we had to adjust our plan a little to make sure we stayed hydrated throughout the race. The course was pretty flat with a few inclines here and there. Neither of us had been to Flushing Meadows Corona Park before, so it was all new to us. We knew we’d have to keep a pretty quick and steady pace to hit our goal and we certainly did. Our average mile pace was 9:23 and we kept with our training structure of 8 minutes running by 2 minutes walking…except that last mile; we walked an extra minute before our last run segment and pushed it in. And, not surprisingly, that mile was our fastest at 8:59.

The finish: around the Unisphere we go! We had a decently strong finish (I was starting to really fade in that last half mile when the heat and humidity hit me) and came in at 59:11, just under the wire to hit both of our goals! We refueled with Gatorade, water, and some snacks, and kept moving around the park, then met up with my fellow Nuun Ambassador Rashida (love meeting IG friends IRL), and headed to the Unisphere to take some fun pictures (see below). All in all, this was a fun race that we’d both definitely do again! Hoping that with some re-vamped and more focused summer training, we can see some time improvements overall. Our next “big” race isn’t until early fall, but we’ve definitely got our work cut out for us!