So for this 10K I was in it for a little redemption! It didn't help my summer races at all that I was dealing with some annoying knee pain. Now I'm back at 100% and running as fast as I was before the summer!
Last year we went to PCB for Columbus Day weekend for several reasons. One: the Pirate Festival for the kids. Two: great race weekend. Three: it's actually still warm enough to swim in the gulf in October. Well, last year it was a three-day weekend for Matthew. Last year I ran the Run for the Treasure 5K with my dad (who ran the 10K) so this year we mixed it up and ran the Blue Mountain Beach 10K. They also host a half-marathon simultaneously and originally it was my plan to train for that. This was before I realized just how hard it is running in the South in summer, and before I screwed up my knee. Around June I realized that half just wouldn't be in the cards for me in October. Instead I've been working on 10K training and getting my knee back to normal.
Did I mention as soon as my dad registered us both for the race we found out Matthew did not get Columbus Day off? Yeah, so that meant driving down Friday after he got off work, and then driving home Sunday after the race. It was a bit of a whirlwind, but we survived.
The race was great, as soon as we arrived and started getting warmed up I was feeling it. And by "it" I mean I knew it was going to be a great run. Sometimes at races I feel nauseous and scared, but other times I just feel pumped to start running. This was one of those races. We lined up with all the halfers and it was time to run! My dad shot ahead of me like he always does. I always try to stay within eyesight of him, but this race turned quite a few times right away so I quickly lost sight of him, even though I wasn't far behind. It was a little hot and humid, about 70 degrees and 90 percent humidity, but that's almost cool compared to what I've been running in. My first mile was fantastic (8:23) and my second was even better (8:12), by the 5K turnaround I was averaging 8:18, so I knew I had a PR coming.
Then something weird happened, I realized the course was going to be short and that my Nike app wouldn't log it as a PR for me. (I know, I know, super OCD.) So as I'm sprinting for the finish, about to cross right around 51 minutes I decide to run through to get that extra .10 miles. The funny thing was, my dad saw me and I called out to him, "It's short!" thinking he would understand why I was running through. Did I mention the people running the half were running through to run another out and back in that direction? Yeah, they were and when I finally hit 6.22 on GPS and peeled off I realized that I could have easily kept running. Now, I wouldn't have been able to maintain my 10K pace (the woman running the half who was in front of me went on to win the the half for the women!), but I think I had a few more miles left in me. That's never happened before. Usually after a race I'm wiped and ready to quit, but I wasn't this time. Which made me realize something very obvious: it's time to run a half-marathon!!
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| Right after the race. They had finisher's medals for the 10K! |
Race stats:
Official time: 51:36 (8:19)
Age group: 1st out of 11
Overall: 13th out of 86 (I was also the fourth female finisher!)
So, long story short, I'm running a half on January 17th, 2015!
(And I just realized I forgot to say what "funny coincidence" I was talking about in the title. Just this little blog post I wrote almost exactly a year ago. I had only run two 5Ks at that time. Now I've run 12 and 3 10Ks.)
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| Dad won his age group too, so we brought home FOUR medals. |
So, long story short, I'm running a half on January 17th, 2015!
(And I just realized I forgot to say what "funny coincidence" I was talking about in the title. Just this little blog post I wrote almost exactly a year ago. I had only run two 5Ks at that time. Now I've run 12 and 3 10Ks.)
