Rodes City 10k Race

Good morning ladies and gents’!  I am officially finished with my race!  I’m back home to relax and veg for the rest of the day!  I say veg but since I have so much energy right now I’ll probably find myself being pretty productive today.

Anyway…. I woke up like I promised myself at 5 a.m. and toasted a piece of whole wheat bread and topped it with a light spread of peanut butter and sliced banana.

I climbed back in bed and slept until 6:45.  I wouldn’t necessarily say I slept for that long after waking up and eating because I ended up lying there awake the majority of the time thinking about the race and prepping in my head.  Oh well.  I did get a few extra minutes of shut eye in there.

My friend, Glenna, met me at our loft and we headed downtown together to find a parking spot and warm up, stretch and get to the start line.

It was 45 degrees this morning so I wore my jacket there and forced myself to give it to Chad.  I knew I’d regret it if I kept it on.

Doing some stretching.

Glenna and I.

Doing some warm up jogging.

The START line.

One last one of Glenna and I before we start.

Chad got one right before we crossed the start line.  A little blurry but whatever.

He didn’t get any more pictures until the finish so I’ll tell you about the race itself.

Glenna and I started out strong but it was frustrating to try and weave through all the walkers on the course.  I think that slowed me down for the first couple of miles until I got into a good section of mostly runners.  I was shocked to see that I was running well under a 10 minute/mile pace  and got to mile 2 and looked over my shoulder and Glenna had fallen behind me a little bit so she waved to me to go ahead and keep going.  I felt bad but I kept running and ended up averaging a 9:33 minute/mile pace for the whole race.  I knew if I kept my pace that I could possibly finish in under an hour.  At mile 3 I started to feel some side splints on my right side but pushed through and before I knew it they were gone.

The minute I saw the finish line I knew I had to up my pace to make it in under an hour.  I pushed hard and as you can tell from this picture, I was looking at my Garmin right at the end to see if I was going to make it.

My Garmin said that I finished in 59:56 but my official race time came in at 59:57!  Still under 60 minutes!  YES!  I’m so excited.  Here’s my Garmin stats:

(I still haven’t figured out how to copy and paste from my Garmin training center page.  Help!!  Someone tell me how!)

Mile 1: 9:27 minute/mile

Mile 2: 9:57 minute/mile (Up a nice steady hill)

Mile 3: 9:38 minute/mile

Mile 4: 9:27 minute/mile

Mile 5: 9:27 minute/mile

Mile 6: 9:33 minute/mile

Remaining .28: 2:25 minutes (an 8:48 pace)

Glenna ended up finishing a little over 5 minutes after me.  Way to go Glenna!!

I ran into our friend, Dinah, after I found Chad.  Way to go Dinah!

After I finished!  So excited and on a complete runner’s high.

The hubs and I.  Pumped that he saw me start and finish.  Obsessed with him.

I found two more nursing friends of mine!  Sarah and Tracy.

I was so glad that I shed my jacket before I ran.  It ended up being nice and sunny and perfect temperature running weather!

Look at all the goodies I ended up bringing home.

I’m really excited about the Clif Z Bar for kids. I snagged a chocolate brownie one and will eat it as soon as Lent is over.  I’ve been wanting to try them and you can buy them in bulk at Sam’s so this saves me a couple dollars so I can try it for free to see if I love them. I also snagged 3 bananas (I inhaled two of them after the race.  I guess it’s a banana sort of day, huh?), Bear Naked Tropical Fruit Granola Bar, Panera Bread cinnamon bagel, an apple, powerade and two Dasani waters.  The other two granola bars, t-shirt, wheaties and water bottle came in my race bag.

Looks like I’m all set with snacks for a day or two.  Love it.

This is me right when I got back home.  Feeling super awesome.  I loved having my natural xanax back in my life again.

I have a sweet baby kitty boy curled up next to me on the couch.

My morning has obviously been super great and now it’s time for me to do some laundry, maybe clean a little bit and I’m sure I’ll be snacking quite a bit along the way.  I hear my stomach grumbling a little bit now as I type.

The hubs is at Disciple Now all day so I’ll have to figure out what I’m going to whip up for lunch and dinner.  Hmmm… what sounds good?!  Decisions, decisions.

Thank you all for the kind words, encouragement and sweet thoughts thrown my way.  I love living this journey with all of you to see.  You keep me motivated!!  I shall see you all later today!