Friday night I loaded up on good food and carbs and went to bed early in preparation for the big race. I had hopes of PRing in this race and maintaining a pretty strict pace for myself in order to reach my goal. I have prepped for this race big time---like for 12 l-o-n-g weeks. I was sick of training and really excited for race day.
When I woke up on Saturday morning at 5:50am I was feeling pretty good. I wasn't able to stretch and warm up as much as I wanted because we hit some major traffic into the race and had to pretty much pee and sprint to the start line. I did a few stretches and was thankful for the run to the start line to get my blood flowing. I'm not much of a warm up person anyway, so this usually doesn't effect me too much. If I throw my leg up on the mailbox to "stretch" it out a bit before a run, I call it good. :)
The race started and my friend Kerri and I were keeping a fast pace...like too fast. Everything I read said to start 10ish seconds slower than your ideal pace...well we were like 40-50 seconds faster than my ideal pace. I was feeling good; great in fact so I just went with it, but in the back of my mind I was worried I was going to die out at the end...
At the 6.2 (10k) mile mark we were running a 8:06 minute mile pace and finished the 10k in 52 minutes! We were flying and I still felt pretty good. Then we hit a large hill at mile 7-8ish that slowed me down a little bit, but not too much. Around mile 9 is started to sprinkle...not a big deal at all. But I could tell my pace was slowing at bit to the high 8:50's. At mile 9.5-10 it was a full on rain. I was soaked--like drenched from head to toe with puddles in my shoes. And to top it all off my shoes would not stay tied. I had to stop 3 times to tie my shoes...I think I could have at least been a minute faster if I didn't have to do this. I was so annoyed. I was cold (weird, I know), wet and miserable for the last 3 miles of the race. At about mile 12 it started hailing on us for about half a mile so that was fun. The hail was literally hitting me in the head--it hurt! Finally, all rain and hail stopped for the last half mile or so and I could tiredly finish the race. (with one shoe untied because I refused stop stop a fourth time to tie my shoe when I was so close to finishing!) My pace dramatically slowed down to 9:30 minute mile for the last 2-3 miles, but luckily my quick start to the race helped me redeem myself and I finished in 1:57 minutes; which is right at a 9 minute pace--my goal was accomplished and now I am taking a sabbatical from distance running...at least until this Saturday when I run at 10k! :)
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| The best thing about the Garmin half (besides the company) was Starbucks after! |
This week's workout have been pretty low key. On Sunday I did 25 minutes of the Elliptical and and Fitness Blender stretching workout from YouTube. On Monday, I did a 5 minute elliptical warm-up and then a Nike Training Camp "Strong" workout. I did about 35 minutes of it and I'm pretty sore today. It incorporated all sorts of full body exercises. Tonight, I plan to run outside with my friends Kerri and Katie--I love group runs--the time passes so quickly! We shall see what the rest of the week brings in terms of workouts.
After the race on Saturday I did about 550 loads of laundry and laid around the house...I was tired. On Sunday, we went to dinner with my family to celebrate my little sister getting her first big girl teaching job! She graduates from college in May and is so excited to start her career as a teacher! It was so fun to celebrate with her!
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| So proud of my little sister on getting her first big girl job! |
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| Love this guy! |
So besides the race, our weekend was low key and fabulous! (and I guess the race turned out alright too!)
Hope you all had a great weekend too!
Talk soon,
Britni
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