Baltimore Ten Miller

Last year I ran the Baltimore Ten Miler with my sister, and we officially changed the name to the Baltimore Ten Miller (my maiden name), and it will forever be known as such.

 

My time last year was 1:25:50, and I was really hoping to beat that, but I haven't been focusing on speed at all, and I was totally ready to blame a slower time on my "exhausted" legs from the 50K two weeks ago.

  

His & Hers clothes laid out...awww.....

This was actually my first time running a race two years in a row! I mean technically I did the Baltimore Half Marathon two years in a row....but the second time I ran another 13.1 miles first...so that changes the dynamics a bit.

We got there bright and early to meet all our runner friends - this race was seriously a party.

 Only one year ago Eric was cheering for me at the finish and claiming he would never run a 5K. Since then he's done two 5Ks, two five mile races, the warrior dash, and the ten miler today - I could not be more proud of him!

 It was really unnerving to say goodbye to my big group of friends at the start and go up to the faster wave all alone - I felt like an imposter despite my time from last year. I was honestly so much more nervous waiting to start this race than before the 50K - running for time is so scary!

 I had never run with a pace group so I decided to try it. I was supposed to meet Jackie and Lily at the 1:25 pacer but Lily couldn't make it and I couldn't find Jackie anywhere - thank goodness she found me about 2 minutes before we started, starting with a friend calmed me down so much!

Pacers turned out to be an enormous mistake.

 As you can see from this picture, we are clearly well BEHIND the 1:25 pacer at the start. We took off and I was trying to stay with the pacer and didn't look at my Garmin, until I realized we were doing a 7:45 pace! Um, what? 1:25 should put us smack at 8:30. So my first mile ended up being 8:08, waaaaay too fast for this race. Then the 1:25 pacers caught up to me at around mile 4 - they were behind me the whole time! So what the hell was up with that sign? And who was I following at 7:45??

Did I mention this race is legendary in Baltimore for it's hills? Or that it was hot and the sun was beating down? My heart was pounding, I could barely breathe, and I felt like I was going to die. Then I saw the marker for mile 2. Then I knew I was in for a rough race. At this point I kissed my PR dreams goodbye. New goal - under 1:30.

I've always been fairly good at negative splits in races and never again will I ignore this plan - once you go out too fast it is basically impossible to recover. I did get into a more comfortable pace around mile 4 or 5 and started enjoying myself more but I still wish I'd started slower. The hills kept rolling and I kept dying, my only consolation was that none of my friends had passed me yet, and my friend Mary and her husband Steve were cheering me on at mile 4 and 6!

Mile 7 my Gu kicked in and there was a little downhill relief so I picked it up a bit, but I was dreading miles 8-10, as I remembered from last year that they were nothing but hills. Even knowing that, I still wasn't prepared. Right after the mile 9 marker you just see this huge hill and I can't put my thoughts on this blog because they resembled the script from a Jerry Springer episode.

But, I finished just under my goal in 1:29:47, and got the goodies I had been looking forward to, which this race is known for:

 Icy cold towels and watermelon. Too bad that was the only food and I still had over an hour and a half to wait for my ride to finish. Um, also can we talk about how my hair completely fell out of my french braid at mile 5 and there was nothing I could do about it without stopping to put down my handheld water bottle to fix it? SO annoying!

But I got to hang out with Jackie and Jill:

 And Carolyn and Casi (shockingly cute picture for after such a rough race!):

 Really wish I'd been smart like them and worn a hat.

Eric's face right after he finished really sums it up.

 "WTF just happened?"

The Lindseys are TEN MILLER finishers!!!!

My friend Jackie her husband ran the race and had a HUGE barbeque at their house that a ton of their runner friends came to. Stuffing our faces and celebrating with everyone was awesome.

I made my legendary red velvet cookies last night and they were the hit of the party, as always.

 It's my birthday in t-6 hours (although I start pulling the birthday card at least 3 days in advance) and I'm ready to drink some wine and celebrate!