Monday, October 25, 2010

My First Race

SO this past weekend I ran my very first race...ok so not my VERY first. I ran cross country my sophomore year in high school but that was like ten years ago!  I haven't raced since that year, though I have threatened to several times. 
My very good friend Christina has talked me into a 1/2 marathon.  In theory, this is awesome and fabulous! In reality, it scares the crap out of me! How am I going to be able to RUN 13.1 miles?! "Easy" she says - "we'll train"!  You will have noticed that I have tracked my running since that fateful day that she asked.
October 23rd was our 8 mile day. Christina's fiance, (also a) J, and his company were running a 5k and needed participants.  She asked me and I agreed.  We still had to get the first 5 miles in for the day though.
We (Christina, her J and I)  met bright and early on Saturday morning and drove to the race site. we were well over an hour early to make sure we had plenty of time to run the 5 miles. 
And time we had! We ran the five miles mostly in the dark -- yeah it was that early lol. I felt good...our pace was a little sporadic but that's ok, the three of us were tired from lack of sleep the night before.  We finished and had THIRTY minutes to stand around and wait for the race to start.  ICK! My legs were starting to feel heavy and my energy was dwindling.  How would I SURVIVE?!
We met up with people from J's company and some of his family who were joining.  I tried to keep moving and not remain stationary.  At last it was race time!
I felt pretty good for the first 1.5 miles -- although I had Thunder Foot running right in my ear.  You know that person, the one that runs so LOUDLY you think they are coming to get you and stomp you in the ground.  Luckily he wasn't able to keep our pace by 1.5 miles. 
We hit the 2 mile mark, and though I was feeling winded and my quadriceps hated me, I was still feeling good.  Then we hit 2.5 and I wanted to burst into tears! I was tired, my legs hurt and I needed something to drink in a terrible kind of way.  Christina and her fiance were trying to be so supportive and I love them for that but I HAD to slow down a little.  I was also mad at myself -- I know I had a million reasons why this felt hard but I feel I'm in pretty good shape and, still, I had to slow down. 
They finished a whole 11 seconds in front of me -- it would have been more but I dug deep and strided out the last tenth of a mile.
For the 8.13 miles we ran that morning, we timed 1 hour 18 minutes, averaging JUST UNDER 10 minute miles. I think I would have felt a lot better had we not had the break for 30 minutes. For the race, I finished 9th in my age group and 28th of 165 female runners.
In two weeks we are doing something similar to this again -- 6 miles and then a 5K. Hopefully we can time it a little better so the waiting time isn't so long.

13 comments:

Unknown said...

Under 10 minute miles is GREAT! Good job! Keep running girl!

Tutti said...

Wow girlie, that's amazing and fantastic and you should be SO proud of yourself! Congrats!

Betty said...

Way to go...and don't be too hard on yourself! That is a lot of running for one day (especially when you combine a training run with a race!). Keep it up...you can do it! :)

redwhitebride said...

wow!!! that's amazing! i could never do that! congrats!

Christina said...

You did great! It's a lot harder to stop and start again. I wanted to quit until we got to mile 2 of the 5K. When we do 10, you'll have a great representation of what we will be running the next week for the race! It'll be fun! I promise :)

Unknown said...

Good for you! I just ran my first half marathon last month and am so thankful for the experience. It's always better to run with friends. Be thankful that you have those friends to pull you along.

Lindsay said...

awesome job with the running (here's something no one tells you about the 1/2 marathon: once you've done 8 miles you can easily do the half...it's all adrenaline!)...Also-thanks for the comment on my blog- your blog is SO adorable :)

Nicole said...

wow, good for you! I'm so not a runner!

cailen ascher said...

wow! that's awesome. i'm not much of a runner (my workouts of choice are yoga, dancing and indoor cardio) and i did a 5k two summer ago. i had shin splits for a week. ugh. needless to say, i haven't run a 5k since...lol

Emily said...

good for you! sounds like so much fun. :)
xx.

Anonymous said...

Great job! I'm impressed with any running and sounds like you did great!

Faith said...

wow, that is amazing! i really hope that one day i can do it but until then i'll just watch you do it, hehe! :)

Smiling is Good for Your Teeth said...

Congrats!! You are a super star!!