8K Race Report

Yaaaay! I'm home and with the family.
What a great race. Perfect weather (about 43-degrees at race time), sunny, very light winds.
I was able to warm up for 10-12 minutes prior to the race. Jogged until I started to break a light sweat, and finished the warm up with a few strides at race pace. I knew what I wanted my splits to be (7:10s or less), and I felt nice, warm and ready!

At the start line, a nice lady fell in next to me and commented on the running skirt! We chit chatted for a minute or two until the gun. Surprisingly the beginning pace felt almost slow! I thought, "Okay, I'll go with it and just adjust from mile 1."

The nice lady established her pace in front of me and by mile 1 I knew I wouldn't keep up with her. Everybody was so supportive as they ran. They'd comment as I came up to them or as they came up to me. "Good pace. Nice job." etc. etc. I felt GREAT! No lactic acid.

Mile 1: 6:54. I thought, "Not feelin' bad. I'll go with it."

Kept trucking along. A couple of high school XC runners passed me. No problem. I still felt good. Light winds. Not enough to suck my wind outta me though.

Mile 2: unknown (missed the marker that was chalked on the road).

We turned onto a long road that seemed never ending. Still light winds. Felt so great. I passed 3 runners. I don't think they liked being passed by a chick in a skirt.

Mile 3: 21:14. Woo woo! I was thanking God for this great energy. I knew I'd meet my goal of 35-36 minutes.

We finally turned off that neverending road and I passed 2 more runners. Up ahead I see a man pull off to the side and vomit. As I reached him, I asked if he was ok and did he need help. He said he was okay and that he didn't need help.
I ran on.

Mile 4: 28:17. YES! At this point I said, "Pick it up, about a mile left. Suck it up and go." I felt really good and picked up the pace. I passed 4 runners, including a guy wearing what looked like a wetsuit! He was not happy to see me come up beside him. I urged him, "C'mon, you can do it."

I ran as hard as I could and I could hear my breath getting labored. But my body felt strong. I had 2 runners right in front of me and my goal was to catch them. I stuck with them until the last turn onto the straight-a-way. The two of them were racing each other and so they dueled it out to the end. I came in 4 seconds behind them. RATS!

My watch's finish time: 34:46 (6:59 pace)
The overhead clock said: 34:47
I'm taking my watch time.

Overall Stats:
15th out of 170 runners
2nd Female finisher behind the nice lady (she finished in 33:48)
1st in Age Group 30-39.

I was so elated! That more than made up for my shoddy 5K last month. Of course I expressed my gratitude to God after the race. I thought of Jenny, another runner who just found out she has Stage 3 Hodgkins Lymphoma, and prayed that she was feeling okay after her first 2 days of chemo.

I'm going to rest and eat, hang with the family, and do a recovery 5 miler later, then 20 miles tomorrow.

Thanks for reading and thanks for the well wishes!!!
TOTAL MILES: 7.5 (includes warm up and cool down)