It was AWESOME!
Full Story:
There was a party at the start/finish line starting at 10:00PM, but we hung out at home until 11:00PM. I had a plan for my shin pain, which started with a hypothesis. I'm fairly certain I'm overpronating when I run (my arch is collapsing), stretching my posterior tibialis muscle, which is what is causing me pain. So my plan was to tape my arches so that they were unable to collapse. Here's what I came up with:
(Excuse my gross left big toe...I should have had J take the picture from another angle ;)
So, after getting "suited up" (We are How I Met Your Mother junkies :) we headed down to the start/finish area. Now all day I had been a little nervous. Not really nervous, but I had that tummy "thing" I would always get before a swim meet.. When I saw the starting line, my nerves disappeared, and I was filled with excitement. Our first real running race!
We pinned our numbers on. Attached our timing chips. (Both firsts for us!) And stood around for about 30 minutes awaiting the start. It was hard to hear the announcer, but when people started herding out to the starting line, we followed suit. We did some walking to warm up our muscles, used the porta-potty, than grouped up behind the masses. Then the count down began. 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1-Happy New Year!!! *Smooch* (It was a new year after all, and I was with my sweetie!) Then the herd began to move forward; very slowly. I started wondering if we had gotten stuck behind all the walkers. (It was a 1.5 mile/5K Walk/Run, and we all started at the same time.) 2 minutes later, we finally went through the shoot...
And started to jog, and dive, and duck, and dodge...for at least a mile. Technically we were passing people the whole time, but it was definitely the most jumbled for the first mile or so. One of the hardest people to pass was this amazingly fast speed-walker. I couldn't believe how quickly she was able to walk. My pacing plan going in was to run the first mile at our easy, daily running pace. Then, on the second mile, build the pace a little bit. Then, depending on how we felt, build into a nice speedy finish. Despite the dodging, diving, and ducking, we pretty much stuck to that plan.
It was pretty humid out, which made breathing a bit more difficult than average, but we still plowed on through; and it was awesome! We stuck to the pacing plan, and continued passing people into the final stretch. The first half of the race was relatively dry (rain-wise) but it started coming down during the last mile or so, which was very much welcome. It's nice to have a coolant system built in to the race like that!
When we finally made it back to the first turnaround (meaning there was only 0.75 miles left) we were very encouraged. I was waiting to see the final shoot before we really kicked it in. I saw police lights that seemed miles away through the crowd, and thought that must be the finish, so kept up with our 3rd mile pace. But then we saw it, the finish, and we really kicked it in. I grunted to J, "Hold my hand," and we crossed the finish line together. It was amazing!
So how did I do? Well, my lower legs didn't feel too bad, especially after the first 1/2 mile. Whether that was due to the taping or do to race adrenaline, I'm not sure. But whatever it was, I'm thankful! As for the goals, let's recap the list:
- Primary Goal: Finish (this one I just added due to my "injury") - Goal Met!
- Secondary Goal: Run the whole way (this used to be my "primary" goal) - Goal Met!
- Secret Goal: Finish in close to 30 minutes (this one seems to be less realistic than a week ago...) Drum-roll please....Goal...MET!
Run stats:
Distance: 5K
Official Time: 29:16
Official Pace: 9:25/mile
I'm also pretty sure we negative split it. We'll never know officially, since they didn't take splits, and I don't have a fancy computer watch (maybe someday?!). But I started my watch just after we passed the starting line, and when I looked at it at the turnaround spot, it said 15:15, so we must have!
I'm sooo happy with our performance last night (this morning?). We went faster than I had expected, my legs felt ok during the run, and we paced ourselves perfectly! Now, in keeping with my Bloggy New Years Resolution. Here's a picture of us after we finally hobbled home. (By "we", I really mean "me". I said my legs didn't hurt during the race, but they were quite sore after we finished...Ice bath sore...)
(Yay for awesome mirror pictures!)I'm also ready to finally post the pictures I promised a week ago from our running path in Sunriver, so here they are:
Fun Fact: We didn't slip and fall once on that snow. And we saw at least 3 other runners out there with us! (Two guys in shorts!)
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