So today’s the day: the 10 mile race. I ran this same 10 mile race last June, so in a way it was nice to know what to expect for this race. I knew where the start line was (behind the post office!), I knew roughly where the 2 or 3 killer hills were, I knew roughly when we’d turn off onto a main street which would lead us back to the town and the finish line. So that was good. I also knew that last year I was melting and overheating, so I took a lot of precautions to be sure that I was hydrated (drinking a ton on Friday, sipping gatorade on the way to the race, taking salt tabs throughout the race, etc). I think all of that really helped me to feel pretty good.

The first mile of the race is congested (always). There were about 700 runners and another 300 or so running the 5K route which was the same for the first mile. That’s a lot of people to fit on small town roads! But we made it and I was happy with my first mile pace (9:30) and felt like I could hang on to that. I mean, that’s essentially my tempo pace. I can do that for 10 miles! Done it many times! Around 3 miles I stopped briefly to walk up a steep hill and to also eat a GU (with aminos!). I had a speedy mile four and in the midst of mile 5 we approached the Hill of Death. I knew it was coming and had already planned to walk it. I did (along with 99% of all of the runners I was around) and took the time to sip my water and catch my breath. Thankfully the hill was in the shade so it was a nice walk. When I got to the top I kicked back into gear and knocked out the next 2 miles. I slowed briefly in mile 7 to dig out my salt tabs and when I saw the aid station and the Mile 8 sign I knew I had some energy left in me to GO. So I did and I started my “pick off and pass” game for the next 2 miles. I was going faster than I thought I was. 8:49? 8:30? 6:49 coming into the shute?! YEP!

I wound up shaving TEN FULL MINUTES off my time from last year – which blows my mind. My garmin said I was capable of it, but I wasn’t sure. Afterwards, thinking about it, I really do feel like I owe a lot of it to the consistency of running this year AND to the hard workouts that I’ve been doing for the past 15 weeks. I guess when you run a hard 8-10 mile run twice a week most weeks it makes a race of the same distance feel like a normal training run. Who knew?! LOL.

After the race they have plenty of free food (which is nice!) but it’s a teeny tiny shame that other than 1/2 a banana and a baggie of grapes I couldn’t eat any of it. I did pile up a plate for B though – nice payment for him coming along and waiting around in the sun while I ran.