Yea 10K!

A few months ago I decided I was going to train for and crush a 10K.

expo!
KC, GBA GF, 3L and DeNiece

And then I got hurt and missed weeks of training.
And then I had a massive personal crisis come crashing down on me.
And then I was diagnosed with a severe vitamin deficiency. (yeah, weird)
And then my stress management went so far into the tank I quit eating and lost 10 pounds in 24 days.

And then .... it was almost race day.




I missed quite a few training runs.  In fact, I missed 2 whole weeks of training, and came back to running one run at a time.  At one point, 5 weeks before the race I was down to running 2X/week.

Oh, and there's the little detail where I had an anaphylactic reaction to something on Friday night.  So seriously that I consumed 2 adult doses of Benadryl and had to hit up my rescue inhaler so I could continue to breathe.

Interestingly, I'm not allergic to many things at that level... only 1 I'm aware of....

So here it's race morning, and not only do I not know how fast to try to run, I'm not sure if I should even start the race.

I met up with my posse.  And decided

"Awe screw it.

I want to run.  This a big day for ALL my A10K training team friends and I want to share it with them.  So, I WANT TO RUN.

Even if I suck, I'm going to run.

One day I'm going to look back and say, 'I stared stress in the eye and told him to eff off'."

So there you go.

It wasn't going to be the perfect day.  But I knew that it was going to be a good day.

in the corral with Illusive, WnW, and Karasmatic.
I think that combination should have been
indicative of how great the day could go....

I believed that I was going to have a great run, no doubt about that. I knew it might not be a PR, or a banner day, but those things do not define a runner. Heart, passion, conviction and dedication are a better measure than pace, speed and time achieved.

We had a giant group hug, like we always do pre-race, and then we all split up.  I got a last squeeze and "Good Luck" from Coach J1 as we all headed to our corrals.  42,000 people at the 10K... and I was seeded in corral C with Karasmatic, Illusive Dave, and WnW.

I ran with a plan to hang on for the first half and push as hard as possible for the 2nd half.

I stripped my shirt off about .2 miles into the race and ran clear.

I sounded horrible and probably looked worse.  

Kristi, 3L, Karasmatic, GBA gf

And none of that mattered in the moment.

As I finished 56 seconds ahead of my "planned" finish time I realized that I ran pretty near even splits.  And as I crossed the line I thought, "I can beat this time."

BiolaBud, KC, J1, GBA GF

After the race we met the whole A10K gang at a RVA hang out and had breakfast and cocktails.  Because life is better with friends.

And Saturday's race was really about being with my people.

felt I had to add in a little edit here... I ran a 49:04, which is exactly a 5:50 PR...  so, just to be clear, I did kick my own a**, at least a little bit.