Today’s race was excellent! My day didn’t start off so great though. I woke up with a bit of malaise and wasn’t too sure how the race was going to go. We left the house at 7, were there before 7:15, and sat in the car for awhile drinking my green tea.
About 7:30 we got out, had a bathroom break then headed towards the festivities. There was a pre-race warm up lead by one of “Baltimore’s Best”. No I did not participate, nor did the majority of the nearly 800 race participants, you see, she did Zumba for about 15 minutes. There were only about 25 people that did, and it was quite funny watching some of these people do it. Shortly after the race began.
My main gripe about this race is it was extremely crowded at the start. They had us all lined up in one lane of a two lane road and didn’t open it up immediately, therefore, the start was congested and everyone started slow. Once we got out, it got better. The race was familiar, I’d just run the course on Thursday actually. This morning I chose to change up my strategy and went with 4/1 run/walk from the beginning. My intention was to skip the last one, but I’ll get to that later. The first mile went great. I ran it in 10:24 and that was with two minutes of walking, so my pace was pretty quick. The second mile was a bit tougher, but I was pushing myself, and completed it in 10:35, again with 2 walking breaks. The last 1.1 miles was tough, there was a pretty steady up hill for most of it, and unfortunately, my walking fell on the downhill part. As mentioned above, I was going to skip my last walk, but I came in sooner than anticipated and I didn’t get the chance. I should have skipped the previous one, oh well! The last quarter of a mile I took off. I ended up sprinting and passing a bunch of runners at the end. It was a great feeling, reminded me of my cross country days (I always had a strong sprint at the end).
After finishing, I met up with Jen and Connor, and we grabbed some food. there were a bunch of places catering so we had a good breakfast after the race. We then sat around hoping for a door prize (I doubt I’ll ever win one of those), and the race results.
Now we’re home and ready for a nap.
Now for the digits:
Mile 1 = 10:24
Mile 2 = 10:35
Mile 3.1 = 11:31
Total = 32:31 (PR of over 30 seconds!)
The official time was 32:32, but I didn’t cross the starting line right away so I’m going off my watch.
3 comments:
NICE! Sounds like a good time. Those are some great pictures too. :)
Congratulations! Very inspiring!
Congrats!!!!! Next stop - sub 30.
loved the pictures too. You totally look like you're hitting your stride.
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