I had a rough week, to say the least. Tackling the holidays with a toddler should be enough to sum it up, but I also had the flu for my birthday on Friday. I tried hitting the spinning bike, yesterday, to make sure I was well enough to race and I had a tough, sucking wind kinda ride. So, I set off to race today with the intent to run, have fun and bring in the new year right. In the back of my head, I knew I would run my hardest, but I certainly wasn't going to kill myself over it. Besides, I had two glasses of wine yesterday, so I wasn't expecting much.
Aspen had the right idea, this morning. We intended to have her run the Diaper Derby with Duane, but she was fast asleep and when the baby sleeps, we are in full support of her deep slumber. I'm pretty sure she and Duane planned to sleep in somehow. Duane was happy to stay home, but only because he has fallen victim to the dreaded plantar fasciitis. We had registered him for the Rescue Run and the Winter Series, but I think he'll be taking a break from running entirely, at least until the spring. Though this is a frustrating time for him, it has helped us devote more time to multisport adventures. We've enjoyed a couple of great Falcon trail rides and have explored gym equipment beyond treadmills.
As I prepared myself for today's race, I was a little nervous that I had just gotten over the flu and haven't been running as much. I was nearly ready to back out of the event and curl up with a good book or run the Garden, instead. Let's face it, racing is intimidating now that I'm actually racing. Nonetheless, I rounded up my spirit and my things and headed out the door.
It was a surprisingly cold morning. But the kind of cold that makes you leave your hat in the car, because it doesn't look that bad, only to wind up diverting your warmup run back to your car to get said hat. I'm glad I did this. I continued a great warmup jog up and down the first hill of the race (a total mile) and hit the starting line with seven minutes to spare. At the start, I encountered the usual suspects: the really fast girl, the girls that run around my pace, the girls that will try to pace with me and die on the hill, and the girls that are vaguely familiar (they also race everything).
I had a solid first mile. I'm really comfortable pacing on an uphill start, being that most of my training runs begin with a long hill. My place was pretty set after the first mile. Like I said, some women tried to pace with me, but I lost them on the hill. And the women in front of me were out of sight. Around mile 3, I was passed by a woman with so much gusto, that it made me wonder why she was behind me in the first place, like she started the race with her much slower male counterpart. The final 1.5 miles are downhill. At this point I was passed by a few men, who most likely gave it their all to not be beat by a girl. They probably went home and took a nap, afterwords.
In the end, I finished at 46:53 as the 5th overall and 1st in my age group. Last year's finish was 54:43. I was most excited that I was ahead of women and men that typically pace with or beat me. Either they partied too hard last night, or my cross training is paying off. Either way, look out Winter Series!
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