The race was going pretty well - I tucked in behind a pack of college runners who were hitting a consistent pace, and at 6k my teammate Hoel caught up with our pack, further inspiring me to maintain my goal pace.
Unfortunately the pack took a wrong turn at 8k. I had been very focused on staying with my pack and had no recollection of seeing a turnoff. Even as we approached 10 kilometers on my GPS watch, I continued to cling to the delusion that I was on course, and I searched desperately for the turn that would take us into the stadium and the finish line. It was only at this point that it begun to dawn on me that we were doing a 3rd loop of the 2-loop course.
I slowed down after covering 10k and jogged through the 3rd loop as a cool down. I felt livid - in my mind I cursed the race officials (even though our pack were the only runners who seemed to have missed the turn). My one best chance for fast a 10k was lost! All the training wasted! All my dreams turned to dust (okay, okay I am exaggerating a bit -- at this point in life I have a little more perspective, but still I was distressed).
Distressed until I uploaded my splits onto Strava and saw that the GPS technology had credited me with a 35:54, my fastest 10k in several years and faster than I had dared hope for. Granted, during the race I had noticed that my Garmin watch was buzzing with a split about 2-3 seconds before we reached each official kilometer split sign. But I tell myself that even if I add 30 seconds then subtract a bunch of time for the furious kick I no doubt would have unleashed in the stadium finish, I still would be close enough to round down to 36 minutes. And so I declare victory.
Who cares that in the official race results I finish near last place. I decide to focus on the more favorable GPS time. Which you can see in this lovely screen capture of the Strava splits:
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