Last night my friend Stacey came over and we had a little pasta party to get ready for the race.
We made whole wheat pasta with homemade sauce, and roasted eggplant. Yum!
The race started at 8 am in Salem, which is about half an hour from my house. We woke up really early and left my house a little after 6:30 am. My brother's gf was running the race too, so we decided to carpool, and my brother and CJ came along for moral support.
For my pre-race breakfast I had a glass of OJ, a bagel with cream cheese, and a cup of coffee.
When we arrived at the race, we picked up our bibs and tech shirts. I was pretty happy that the tech shirts were long sleeves! I also got a pair of gloves, which I wore during the race since it was pretty cold this morning.
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| check out the dork in the neon pink headband |
At a few minutes after 8, we were off!
Yulia ran ahead since she's a speed demon. Stacey and I decided to run together since we both wanted to run at a 9 min/mile pace. The course started off mostly flat with a few hills. I felt like the majority of the first half was downhill, with one major uphill. The first 3 miles flew by, and I was feeling pretty good. There were lots of gatorade and water stations, which is helpful. I still haven't mastered drinking out of a cup while running thing, but I figured out a new technique this time, and it was better than spilling water all over myself. I pinched the top of the cup so that it was narrower and easier to control. It seemed to work out.
At mile 4.5, there was a bathroom stop, which I didn't take advantage of and I definitely should have. Mile 4.5 was also the turnaround, and the course went back the same way. This was ok, but I felt like there were alot more uphills on the way back. At mile 6, I took my energy gel. This is also where I lost my gloves. I tried to take them off and dropped one. There was no way I was going to go back for a measly glove!
At around mile 7, I started to fall back from Stacey. This made me feel disappointed in myself, but I just knew I couldn't keep up, so I started to slow down. For the remainder of the race I tried to keep my pace at about 9:30- 9:45 min/miles. The last 3 miles of this race were a huge struggle for me. I was trying to push myself, but I was running out of steam and my feet were getting pretty sore. This was my first time running 10 miles so I just wanted to finish it.
The best feeling was seeing the finish line. Right when I crossed it, the song "Halleluah" by Paramore came on my iPod and I couldn't have picked a better song for how I was feeling. I was just so happy to finish!
My time was 1 hour 34 minutes and 15 seconds.
