Thursday, July 5, 2012

4th of July 10K



I celebrated America's birthday in a pretty traditional fashion. I started out by running a small 10K near my hometown, 327 people small, to be exact. FYI, this picture was taken after the race, hence the nasty sweat and hairhorns.


Just so you know, there is no greater form of patriotism than wearing a red, white, and blue noodle hugger and red Aspaeris Pivot shorts. Not to mention the race shirt from our nation's capital. 

I've only ever run two 10Ks, one was over 2 years ago, when I was just getting into running, and I know due to this blog that my time was 53:06. The other one is called "Dreaded Druid Hills", which was fun, but not the kind of race to PR in, so 53:06 was the time to beat.

I really didn't know what to expect. On one hand, I know I've gotten faster in the past two years, so I figured beating my PR was pretty much a given if I put in minimal effort. On the other, I've done no recent speedwork. In fact, all my runs in the heat and humidity have been slow and pathetic. 

I started out feeling pretty good, and when I passed the guy calling off the times for the first mile, mine was 7:40. So once again, I was headed down that dreaded path of starting out too fast. 

My splits from this race are basically a study in "how NOT to run a smart race". 

7:36, 8:11, 8:09, 9:13 (WTF happened here?), 8:33, 8:20, and my last .2 was at a 7:44 pace. So apparently my plan was: take off like a bat out of hell, then slow way the hell down and barely trudge to the finish. Perhaps doing some tempo runs to work on pacing would benefit me.

I was totally pissed off when I saw the finish line clock had "51" on it, I was hoping to finish in under 1:50, especially since a guy was calling off the 5K split times and mine was 24:25. My official time was 51:31, average pace 8:19. I stormed off to the car, planning on rushing home to forget about how poorly I did. 

Kara asked me if I won anything in my age group, and I said I didn't even check, but then it started to bother me, so I actually drove back to the race start (I hadn't gone that far), and checked the results. I was third in my age group, so I stuck around for the super fancy awards ceremony.

It was run mainly by young children.
This pretty much took forever. You would think people winning an award for running a race quickly wouldn't take so long to saunter up and get their freaking award, but they did. I did get to see a man in the 70 and over category who ran the race in 54 minutes, which I found pretty impressive.

There were 18 women in this category, so totally legit.
When I got home, my mom was cooking, and I got my real reward.
 

I think I am addicted to bacon.
I'd like to call myself a bacapescatarian - a "vegetarian" who eats fish and bacon.

Then I flew back to Baltimore, and did the typical holiday activities - ate, drank, and watched fireworks with friends. When we left to head home, it was midnight and still over 90 degrees out. So Kari's suggestion of running at midnight to deal with the heat is invalid.

A lot of blogs have asked people what they did for the 4th, but I think I'll just assume we all did the same things as the rest of America, and ask a totally random question - what would you do if the love of your life was allergic to chocolate, and being with that person meant giving it up forever.

8 comments:

  1. That wasn't all you ate, right? Maybe I should try bacon. This bacapecatarian thing could catch on.

    If Mike was allergic to chocolate, we never would have survived long enough to fall in love.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Are you low carb now? Where is the toast???

    Couldn't I just eat chocolate when he travels? That happens often enough that I could get by.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Congrats on that certificate! :)

    I hardly ever win anything and rarely stick around, especially if I see all the usual fast people at local races. The meal after is definitely the best award!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I love it so much that you love bacon. It really is amazing, especially with pancakes and syrup. You know, like the salty and sweet thing. Yummmmmm.

    I'm the worst at pacing myself. I ALWAYS start out too fast, even during training runs. I need someone to whip my running self into shape big time.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Nice job on your 5k! I won an AG last weekend and I do not care at all that there were like 10 women running between the ages of 20-29. I will take it no matter what!

    I would be ok with the no chocolate thing. I would be sad, but I would drown my sorrow in licorice and hard candy.

    ReplyDelete
  6. 10Ks are soooo hard to pace. I think you did pretty darn good! You are a racing machine. I hope to begin racing again in the next couple weeks.

    The picture above is cute. What are hairhorns?!?

    ReplyDelete
  7. Great job, it was still a pretty hot race!


    And as for the chocolate thing, I would have to go on choclate vacations without them. Like bi-yearly trips to Hershey, PA. A girl needs love, but she needs chocolate too.

    ReplyDelete
  8. That would be tragic to have to give up chocolate! I hate that you didn't run as fast as you had hoped but congrats on the PR and age group award.

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for commenting! Comments make me probably more happy than they should.