On Saturday morning I emailed my Dutch friend Fons and asked him whether there were any good cross-country races in the area for the weekend. He replied back stating that he had an extra bib-number for the Seven Hills Run in Nijmegen on Sunday. Our friend Inge decided not to run, so I would be able to use her bib. However, Fons and I agreed that I should not use the chip that came with the number as it would seem suspicious when it registered in the results (would have been 6th female overall using the chip under Inge's name). Two years ago I ran this same race using another runner's (Herman) bib-number and chip; however, unlike 2-yrs ago, we were not able to officially transfer the registration because we did not meet the transfer deadline.The goal going into the race was to beat my time (51:26) from two years ago with the same tactic of going out conservative early on the hills and then picking up the pace as the race progressed. However, this time around I wanted to cross the 5K mark a few seconds faster, which I did with a 17:17 5K split, 7 seconds faster than in '08. On the steepest hill at 7K I caught up to Aussie Benita Willis (formerly Johnson) and a few other runners. My legs felt good, but the breathing started to get heavy and could even feel my pace begin to slow. This was evident with a positive 2nd 5K split of 17:28 and a slower 10K time (34:45), 12 seconds slower than in '08. After averaging 3:37/km (5:48 pace) for the 11th and 12th km, which included a couple small hills, I knew that a 15K PR was not within reach. Ruling out the PR I still made the effort to get under 52 minutes, which I did with a 3:13 last km. Below is my splits comparison for '08 and '10. Also, you can view some video clips of me here.
Seven Hills Run Splits
| Year | 5K | 10K | 15K |
| 2008 | 17:24 | 34:33 (17:09) | 51:26 (16:53) |
| 2010 | 17:17 | 34:45 (17:28) | 51:53 (17:08) |
Btw, Leonard Komon of Kenya broke the 15K World Record running 41:13 and smashing the old mark by 16 seconds. Wow!!!
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