Hey friends!
I wanted to share a funny story from this morning with you before I go in to the recap. We were having the carpets shampooed today to get the place ready to be rented out. The shampooers showed up just about the time I needed to take Kelly to school.
Alfie was still home so he took her to school. Kelly has this little tradition where she blows me kisses as I pull away from dropping her off. It makes my day really. She’s just so sweet.
Apparently it makes Alfie’s day too. He texted (what he thought was me) this morning after he dropped her off at school. The conversation went something like this:
Alfie: “Kelly made my day, she blew me kisses when I dropped her off at school”
Who he thought was me: “?”
Alfie: “Kelly……… I dropped her off at school…….. she blew me kisses too…..”
Who he thought was me: “Dude, I still don’t follow”
Turns out he was texting the guy who installed our tile. 😀 Priceless!
ANYWAY—on to the recap!
My day started off great! I got a great night’s sleep (aside from the fact that I kept waking up paranoid that the alarm on my phone wasn’t going to go off!)
I had my typical pre-race breakfast:
And I headed to the Metro around 7:00. The crowds were very minimal, and I arrived at the mall right around 7:20. It was a beautiful morning! And I was so happy that the Washington Monument no longer had all the scaffolding around it!
I made my way to my corral, and soaked in the energy of my fellow runners as we listened to the announcer give us a play by play of the women’s elite division!
Before I knew it—it was my turn to take off! I knew I wasn’t as trained up as I should be for this run, so I tried to take it easy. I didn’t want to burn out quickly because I went too fast in the beginning. Hindsight tells me I probably took it a little TOO easy……
I had my splits from last year in the back of my head, just to give myself an idea of how far off I was during this run. When we got to the first split marker (5 mile split), I knew I was fairly far off from last year. This year my split was 52:18 vs. 50:50. I tried to not let it discourage me because I was feeling really good during the run!
The next split was the 10K.
Mind you, last year I ran the Hershey 10K in under an hour! While I knew not to compare the two, I knew I could still compare this split to last year’s 10 miler, and I’m not going to lie—it discouraged me– alot. This year’s split was 1:06 vs. 1:03 last year.
While I knew that I wasn’t too far off, I knew I didn’t have the “juice” to make up for lost time either. PLUS we were in the portion of the run that I dislike the most—miles 6-8 are a tad bit tedious. The road is narrower, there aren’t as many spectators, and normally you can at least appreciate the cherry blossoms, however this year there were none.
At that point I said to myself, “Well, I’m just going to have a good time”.
Around mile 8, I came up on the same crew I talked about last year! They had beer AND oreos again. And this time, I decided to document the festivities. 🙂
These guys were awesome! Great sports, and talk about a boost in morale!! 🙂 Hope to see you again next year!!
As I turned the corner after my shot of beer, I noticed a group in a row boat. I’m not sure if they were in training for something or not, but it appeared as though they had a coach sitting in the boat giving instruction.
Then I figured I better get myself back in gear and finish this race off right. Around mile 9 the crowds start to pick up again, and their energy really does breathe new life in to a runner. I finished miles 9 & 10 fairly strong, and while I’m not THRILLED with my time—1:51:10, I’m also not completely disappointed either. I still finished. And I felt good doing it. In the past I’ve had my share of problems with knees, tendons, and just plain energy loss. None of that happened during this run, and for that I’m grateful.
Now to just work on the mental aspect of it all…………… 🙂
What about you—are you good at practicing mind over matter??
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