And I loved it more than I thought I would.
I was actually dreading running last week. And last Friday. And Saturday morning on the way to the race. But the Healthy Inner Me grabbed the other me, shook her, and reminded her that she was ready for this and would kill it. Thank God she came along.
So, uhh, let's re-cap.
Saturday morning. It's early. It's raining, like pouring down raining.
It's kind of cold, especially for North Carolina.
We drive along the race route on the way in.
We see puddles. Giant puddles.
After I got my race bib and my t-shirt, I wanted to get the freak out of there.
Thank God see Sam run and I were together, because I didn't.
I couldn't. We were going to do this damn thing together. Rain or shine.
In a magical miraculous turn of events, the heavy rain turned into a moist sprinkle about five minutes before we were set to start. And the heavy rain never came back. The weather was actually wonderful - not too hot, not too cold.
Mile one.
This one is always the hardest for me. And race days only make it worse. There is nothing more overwhelming than running in a huge crowd of people.. except maybe of course the first 0.1 mile of the route being in a spongy wet field of grass. After getting through that part, I just focused on pacing myself and relaxing. It's too easy to get psyched out and overrun yourself right out of the gate. I just needed to ignore everyone around me and get in the zone. The crowd normally thins out after the first .25 miles or less - the fast people take the lead, the slow people fall to the back, and the people in between find their spots.. so it didn't take long to get out of the crowd..
Mile two - Mile four.
After getting in my groove, the race got much better. I felt so comfortable. I felt so natural. And I started picking up the pace.
And I started playing my favorite racing game: which person will I pass next? The rules are simple. Pick someone ahead of you (be realistic here) and guess how long it will take for you to pass them. This guess can be in the form of time (I bet I can pass that person by the time the chorus on this song starts again) or in the form of distance (I bet I can pass that person by the time I get to that tree up ahead). And it is SUPER fun when you actually get around them.
My secret weapon to the passing game yesterday was Get Me Bodied by Beyonce. When I run to that song, I sync my feet to the beat and literally shave 20 seconds off my pace almost immediately. I literally passed about 8 - 10 people during this song.
Mile 5.
The Beyonce song ended but my pace kept going. I was passing bitches LEFT and RIGHT. I loved it. This mile was pretty normal, except near the end of it I started cramping.
Mile 6.
I can work this cramp out - no big deal. I tried deep breaths through my nose. I tried increasing my stride but not my pace. I tried leveling off and slowing down some. But my body was used to this fast shit and I couldn't back off. And then I did. I had to. Around .25 miles into my final mile, the left side of my abdomen felt like someone had stuck a butcher knife right through it. I started walking.
My least favorite part about playing the passing game in mile two - four? Watching some of the people passed pass me back in mile 6. It was a total blow to the amazing ego I had developed the entire time. I walked it out, took some deep breaths, and told myself that no matter what I had a lot to be proud of that morning and that I needed to finish as strong as I could. When I quit feeling like death about 0.5 miles from the finish line, I picked up as much of a jog that I could and threw on some motivating tunes.
I finished the race in 1:09:31. My overall pace was 11:13, which is slow for me, but considering that I walked - I'll definitely take it.
Even though I got really frustrated at the end, I crossed that line with pride and excitement. This exact time last year, see Sam run and I were about to run our first 5k together. That 5k was HARD.. probably harder than that 10k was yesterday. It was just amazing to think about how far we had come in a year. And yesterday we decided that we are doing a half marathon this year. Yeah - runner's high is no joke.
I'll follow up and tell you guys about the 5k from this morning tomorrow in a Part II recap.
What's something that you can do now that you never thought you could?
What's something you don't think you could ever do that you want to?
Happy Sunday, people.
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