Get in Gear

Today was my first-ever road race, and it was pretty fun! See me there in the blue? Just kidding--that was the elite wave of 10k runners...the people who ran 6 miles in half an hour. I was in a little different league. :)

There were a ton of people there...7,000 runners for the 4 different events. You could tell the serious runners from the hobby runners from the weekend warriors, but it was amazing to see how many people came out to RUN. Not being a runner myself, I felt like I was stepping into someone else's world for a few hours.

I started out 2/3 of the way back, because I didn't want to get in the way of the people who were actually trying to get a good time. But I ended up behind a lot of people who were even slower than me, so I spent a good part of the first mile weaving in and out, just trying to get in a good space.

I could tell we were getting close when everyone kept saying, "There's the bridge! There's the bridge!" (where we had started). The goal in sight, I pushed on and stopped right after I pounded the time pad. It seemed a little anti-climactic, but I didn't have anything to compare it to. Then a guy on the sidelines said, "Come on! You can finish it out!"...and then I suddenly remembered that the finish line was farther up the hill than the starting place. Gaa! It was hard to muster up the energy for that last .2 mile, short as it was. I'm pretty sure I didn't push it to the finish line the "second" time. :)

It was supposed to be rainy and cold, but the sun came out just in time, and it was a beautiful day for a run. I came in 505th out of 1054 women, and 121st out of 221 people in my age-range. I definitely would like to improve my times, but for now I was just glad to have finished! Vance is already talking about me running a 10k next year...