OMG, track! (10k track race report)

I do not know why I have agreed to do this. 10k on a track. 25 laps. After 4 weeks without running. With screwed up IT band.

It was a meet organized by Polytechnique and it is usually on a road, but this year they do some construction work therefore they decided to do it on a track. We were supposed to start at 3:10pm and at 3:09 when everybody was getting ready for start, they suddenly realized that there is too many people and no way they can deal with all of us at once. Therefore they divided us into 2 groups: those whose reference time was under 40min and those planning on finishing over 40minutes. Which meant that my race was postponed by 50min! Crap.
I spent those 50min swearing and complaining to everyone who would listen and asking myself what exactly I was doing there. Indeed, very enjoyable 50 minutes.

But then off we went. I did not know what time I can hope for and was already sous-motivated. I started at 1:40min/lap pace and decided to see how it goes, whether I will die at 5k mark or not. First 3 k I ran with one of my teammates, but then he decided to go ahead and I stayed alone for the rest of the race. I was not really pushing myself, but it was still pretty hard, because 10k race is 10k race, it is quite a lot. And I got bored. It is not like running trails or in town where you can look around and observe things. Here, all you do is running in circles. And I had already enough after 6 of them.
I told to myself, ok you will do 5k at this pace and then you try to pick it up a little. At 5k mark, I decided to wait until 2k to do. At 8k mark, I told to me what's the point, I can just pick up the last 400m and then it was really too late so I just kind of sprinted last 100m.

My time: 42:13. Now awesome, but not that bad. Maybe if I persuaded myself to push a little, it could have been very close to 40, even maybe just under 40min because I really felt good. Of course I curse myself in retrospective and feel guilty that I have not tried to run it faster but I am somehow satisfied because I have not run for almost one month and (I can just go on and on with excuses).
My knee bothered me a little at around 3k mark, but then it was ok. Seems that it is back to normal again. I just hope it will stay like this.
There is another meet on April 15 and I might try to do 3k. This time, I am going to train for it and maybe I can win the battle with myself and push a little bit more.