My mom picked up my packet for me Friday so I didn't have to worry about getting downtown to get it. Friday was Grace's 6th birthday so we headed to my mom and dad's house that night. Since it was a 10k, I didn't worry too much about what I was eating. Thank goodness, because Grace asked for tacos and I LOVE tacos!! I tried to keep a limit on my taco consumption and I think I did pretty well. However, tacos make me very thirsty and I probably didn't hydrate enough on Friday. Friday night before bed I checked the weather one more time and it showed only a 20% chance of rain. I went ahead and laid out several different clothing options and would decide in the morning if I needed rain gear or not. Then it was time to sleep!
Every time my alarm goes off on a Saturday of a race day, I always think to myself, "why the heck to I do this?" I mean, really? Who likes to get up on a Saturday and go to a race. ME!! While I love to sleep, there is something about adrenaline and nerves for a race and all the hyped up music and people. Luckily after checking the weather, we seemed to be in the clear. I drove downtown and met Angie and Bill (their softball tourney was cancelled so they could run!) in the parking garage and we walked to the starting line.
(This is a horrible parking garage selfie of me)
We snuck inside a McDonald's to pee real fast (I'm a nervous pee-er...I ALWAYS have to pee when I get to a race). Once at the starting line we were ready!
The race overall went well. A few sprinkles here and there but nothing too bad. I didn't stop for any water along the way. I've done enough 6 mile runs without water that I thought I'd be fine. I was...but definitely wanted water at the finish line. I've been having a heart to heart with myself lately...I'm starting to get nervous/dread running because every time I run I try to beat my time before. I'm extremely competitive with myself and I need to chill out with that. I'm afraid if I continue being so hard on myself, I'm not going to want to continue to run. Make sense? So having this heart to heart with myself, I went into the race thinking that I would just enjoy the run and not worry about my time. I don't know why I feel I have to run faster than the time before, nobody knows what my times are and it doesn't matter. But guess what?....I did it again. I pushed it...it's so hard not to when it's a race. Let's just say it's a work in progress.
I never really pay attention to the clock time when I cross the finish line because I know that is not my time. When I looked down at my watch I knew I was close to a PR. I signed up for the text alert that tells you what your time was, and according to that, I was 5 seconds faster (than my previous PR)! Then, when I looked online at the results later, it had my time being 13 seconds slower than the text I received. Crazy! I'm not sure why the times are so different. So, now I'm not sure which time to use? Oh well, it is what it is!
Tony's out of town for most of the week and weekend so I'm hoping to get at least 1 run in this week and my mom said she'd watch the girls this weekend so I can do a long run. The 10-miler is in 2 weeks, and Lexington's Run the Bluegrass half marathon is in 3 weeks. Welcome to spring running season!
