Seconds Dates with 10ks. It's Like We're Married.

So I ran my second 10k back on October 13.  And I kicked it's ass! Which I seriously did not think would happen. Let me tell you why. But first, let me paint a quick picture of this race.  Our friend said it best when he described it as "a cross country race for adults". That is exactly what it is.  An open 10k cross country race for anyone.  And then a college race.  And then a high school race.  And then a junior high race.  It brings back memories of the Glory Days, for sure.  On with the story:

My morning started just peachy- there were no major child/husband/me disasters that caused us to be late or anything like that.  I had coffee.  And a peanut butter bagel. I was set. Everything was going smoothly.  And then we arrived at the parking lot and waited for the shuttle to take us to the race.  And we waited.  And waited.  With two kiddos under 2, a BoB duallie, and about 8 backpacks full of baby-ly and running-ly things, my waiting time patience was maxed out at 20 minutes.  We also hadn't considered a long shuttle wait-time into our morning agenda. 

.....So here is where I could seriously write an entire book about our adventure getting onto the shuttle, the shuttle ride, and departing the shuttle.  But I won't.  Because it's really frustrating and I don't really care to relive a play-by-play of everything that happened.  But I will say this, which pretty much sums it all up: In all my years of running, I have always found that the running community is full of really amazing, encouraging, helpful, totally rad people.  None of them were on the bus that morning.  Except for 1 guy and the other family that was juggling 3 kids.  Everyone else sucked.  Bleh.

Anywho.  We got to the actual race area way later than we intended.  The check-in was setup as a men's line and a women's line; which meant my husband got his number in about 4 seconds and I had to wait 15 minutes.  Such is life when you have a vagina.  At least there wasn't a line for the porta potty (this is my attempt at optimism).  This race always does a super job of having a plethora or porta potties.  I bet a woman organizes that part of the race. Anyway, after all that, I had just enough time to change shoes, put on my number, find my headphones, and run to the starting line.  Forget any warming up or stretching. Bleh again.

The gun fired and we all took off! I was running on straight-up adrenaline/pure outright frustration about that damn shuttle ride for the first 2.5 miles.  It was awesome! They even had a guy calling out your mile times- just like in high school! It made me smile :) The little 8ish-year-old girl that I kept running back and forth with made me smile too.  She looked like she'd much rather be playing with Barbies than running a 6.2 mile race early in the morning with a bunch of lame adults.   

I had no idea what time I should go for in this race.  I've decided it's difficult to have goals other than "faster than last time" when you are still getting back in shape.  So instead I went for "people goals".  There were lots of people at this race that I recognized from other races and I wanted to beat them all.  Ok, well, at least beat the ones I knew were possibly beatable.  And I did! I had my sights set on one girl in particular who is always at the speed sessions and is always faster than me.  And I passed her! I was so proud of myself (that's right, I just tooted my own horn. Deal with it). So I don't remember off hand what exactly I ran, but I believe my splits were sub-9:00 miles which is beyond anything I could have expected for myself!  The running store owner/speed session coach yelled at me to kick it in with about 1/4 mile left, so I did.  I've found it makes my life (read, my Monday speed sessions) easier if I do what he says.  Plus, there were two "old dudes" in front of me that I had no intention of letting beat me.  I thought of about a million different smartass things to say to these "old dudes" as I passed them ("hey old guys. I can't believe you are going to get chic-ed this close to the finish line. hahaha"), but I thought better of it and kept my mouth shut.  Now, if you know me in real life, this will surprise, nay, SHOCK you.  You probably don't even belive me. But it's true. I'm still not sure if I'm sad about it or not..... ;)

The next 10k will be Girls on The Run on Nov 17.  It's a road 10k and will be the real test of where I'm at.  My running has taken a step down lately because of traveling (my husband just ran his first marathon!!), and the husband traveling and just overall craziness of life.  I'm hoping to be able to get in at least two 6+ mile runs before Nov 17. 

First Dates with 10ks

One down, one to go!

So it wasn't the worst first date with a 10k. It was, however, a little misleading.  You know when someone posts a Brad Pitt-like picture and they are like "this is my profile picture.  I really do look like this."  And then when you meet them in person, you think they probably should have posted a picture of Steve Buscemi instead.  Because that would have been more realistic.  No offense to Steve; I bet he's really nice.

Anyway.  So the 10k wasn't really a 10k.  It was like a 6.4-6.9 miler depending on whose GPS who choose to believe.  Which actually kinda makes me happy.  My splits for an actual 10k were about 10.02, but since it wasn't really a 10k, that means I had sub 10 minute mile splits.  Yay me!  I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that whatever time you would normally run a road race at, add at least a minute to your mile pace when you are doing trail races. They are hard.

Here's the down low with the race.  I had no idea where the course was going to go.  My plan was to make sure there was always someone in front of me that I could follow.  This ended up being the best plan in the world.  There were a lot of people who took wrong turns.  I guarantee you I would have been one of those people had I not made sure I was following someone at all times.  But the race itself was so much fun!  Trail running requires so much mental power (step here, watch out for that branch, jump over that log, etc) that you almost forget to be tired. It was a total brain workout. The end was the worst.  The last couple of miles were all up hill, down hill, up, down, up, down.  Really short and steep uphills and really short and steep downhills.  Of course, by this time your legs and brain are about fried which make trail running even harder.  A lady bit it right in front of me and I tried to help her up.  She totally ignored my attempt (jerk!) so I made it a point to run past her.  So mature, I know. Then karma hit and I almost bit it twice in a very short period of time. 

Next 10k is the Chili Pepper Cross Country 10k tomorrow morning. I've always wanted to run it so I'm really excited!  It's been raining all day today so it'll be interesting to see how crazy the course ends up being.  My goal is to run 9:30 splits. Woohoo!