Eastleigh 10K Race Recap

Hey! I did another 10K!

I thought this as a cool part of the free t-shirt! Gotta love race t-shirts. This does not do the color justice. It looks in the pic that it's school bus yellow. It's actually florescent highlighter yellow. I'm not even kidding.

So I'm a bit late in posting this. I started my new job last week so I took a week off from writing until I could get into a good routine. (Side note, perfect time to start a new job in England. 4 day week. 4 day weekend due to TWO bank holidays. And then another 4 day week. I'm spoiled.)

I'll keep the recap short and sweet.  

Time was 1:04:28.

No PR, but overall I think this was the best 10K I've run out of my 3. I'm counting it as a personal PR (personal personal record? Whatever.) for several reasons.

Even though my time was about a minute slower than the last 10K I did, I think this course was a lot more accurate for distance. Also, all of my splits in this race were pretty consistent. I didn't really negative split, but I didn't positive split either. My splits kind of looked like a bell curve to be honest. (Bell Curve... What a dork... Statistics was always my best subject in high school/college!)

There was a hill between miles 2 and 3 if I remember correctly, and I felt like I conquered that like a champ. It wasn't particularly steep, but it was long and gradual. And honestly, sometimes those are worse. But I powered forward and felt strong going up it.

Oh and not to mention I did this entire race without music! I didn't want to do it; I really like running with music! And I always thought I was so dependent on my music to keep me going. But everyone was saying how strict they were with the "no music or headphones" rule. So I didn't use my iPod for fear of getting disqualified. And I didn't hate it! It's good to know I can run 6.2 miles without some jams keeping me going. 

Lastly, I loved this race because over 130 members of my running club ran it! We took a big group photo before it started. Even though I'm in the slower portion of the club, it didn't really feel like it mattered. And that felt good. Other members were constantly cheering everyone else on, especially at the end. It was some of the best camaraderie I've ever seen.

Do you like running racing with people you know or do you prefer to go at it alone? Do you run with or without music?

Wrap Up & Run 10K Race Recap

I honestly wasn't even going to do this race. I was going to concentrate on PRing in the Eastleigh 10K (which is next weekend) because literally 100 people from my running club are doing it and didn't know if I'd be up for racing 2 weekends in a row.

But oops! I found myself signing up for it because it was super close to my house and I felt like I should take advantage of that. I mean, America finds a race for everything. I kinda miss that.

I wore green even though it wasn't St. Paddy's Day themed! Oh well! #TeamSparkle

The course was about 2.5 laps of the park that I know like the back of my hand. This kind of worked to both my advantage and disadvantage.

My slowest points were definitely when I thought "Ugh crap... I still have to run this exact spot 2 more times..."

And then to top it off, they had signs for every kilometer. So as we passed the 1K marker, we passed the 5K marker about 4 seconds later. That was a bit soul crushing. Stupid laps.

Oh and did I mention it rained poured the entire time?? I know, I'm really painting a fantastic picture of how lovely this race was.... But it down-poured. And it was kind of nice for like a minute. And then rain got in my eyes and my contacts starting cursing at me and that sucked.

Other than that, it was a great race! It wasn't very big, therefore, no big crowds or need for weaving.

Thumbs-upping to Alex, who was a lovely sport and stood in the rain! It looks like I'm going super fast because I'm a blur in the picture. In reality I'm probably like "It's raining, it's cold, and we're at .3 miles right now...."

My last 10K was back in December 2011. So going into this race on Sunday, I knew I had a PR in me somewhere.

I had no idea I had a 10 minute PR in me, though! My official time was 1:03:38!

I stayed pretty positive throughout the race. Even though I didn't train much (read: AT ALL) for this race, I knew how far I had come and felt proud to be a runner.

The worst parts, like I said before, were the parts when I realized how much was left simply by knowing how many laps we had completed. Those were my 2 mental blocks. Anything in between was more like "Yay! Running! This is fun! I'm flying!" 

I sprinted through the finish and was beaming when I looked down at my Garmin and saw 1 hour and 3 minutes staring back at me. It was a good feeling.

What wasn't a good feeling was walking through the mud as shooting pains were going through my knee. Ouch, that was no fun....

But then we went home and made green drinks in honor of St. Patrick's Day.  

Green cider... Why the hell not!

In my lovely college town, they always had green beer for the weekend. But I hate beer. So I never really celebrated St. Patrick's Day. So when Alex said the pubs were making green beer/cider for the first time (that he'd seen), I knew I had to celebrate my PR in style!

Hope you had loads to celebrate this weekend! Do anything fun for St. Patrick's Day?? Race? PR? Pretend to be Irish?

slow and steady wins big time

"Slow and steady wins the race" can probably apply to anything but running. In the cliche sense, sure "slow and steady" wins a personal race in running; it keeps you safe and fresh without overexerting yourself. But in the literal sense, slow and steady makes you kind of mediocre in a race.

The day I finished my first 10K in December 2011, I was beyond ecstatic. I felt like I had accomplished so much and was really proud of my whimsy new years resolution to "become a runner". My family looked at me different, my friends envied my new talent, and I felt on top of the world.

About 24 hours later when the "glory" faded (I now, it's a big adjective for a small achievement, just go with it), I felt embarrassed about how happy I was. I saw my 10K through new eyes. I saw my "slow" pace compared to other people and my place in the lower half of the rankings. I didn't see my accomplishment as an accomplishment anymore, and I started getting really discouraged.

But today during my 5 mile run in the blistering heat was the first time I thought back to how "embarrassed" I felt and realized how silly I was being.

Okay, I'm slow. I'm still faster than everybody on the couch. Running is about improving and empowering, and especially breaking down those mind barriers. My "slow" today was once my "fast" a year and a half ago. And my "fast" these days might be my "slow" another year and a half from now.

So it's okay to be slow! Slow is better than nothing, and a lot of other people out there are doing a whole bunch of nothing.

Here's why I think it's okay to be a slow poke:

1. No pressure! - Sure there's the pressure that I put on myself to get better. But that's just the thing; I'M  the one putting it there. There's no need to set my sights on a hefty new PR or even place top 3 in a race! I run for fun. I run for the love of it. I run because I can.

2. My stamina has improved!- Because I've been working so hard to not be slow and therefore appear to be making very tiny improvements, my long runs have gotten a lot better! Don't get me wrong, I still run anywhere between 11 and 12 minute miles! But my slow pace today made the 5 miles breeze by and I felt strong. I'd rather be strong and slow than fast and dead out of breath.

3. My hydration doesn't suffer- I don't know about you, but when I'm in a "fast groove", stopping for water feels like such a burden. I'm not good at that brisk "gush and go" technique nor do I like to just bop around jogging in place while I drink like an idiot. So when I stop, my legs seem to tense up immediately and it's hard getting back into my groove. I'm thinking of The Emperor's New Groove where he goes, "YOU THREW OFF MY GROOVE!! That's exactly what it does; it throws off my groove! But when I'm slow and steady, my hydrating time doesn't take a toll on my legs. I'm happy when I'm hydrated. I'm not happy when my groove is thrown off.

So today, like I said, I ran 5 miles. I took advantage of some cloudy weather, got rained on for 30 seconds, and then ran the rest of the time in blistering hot humidity. At one point when Cody Simpson was serenading me through my iPod (don't judge, I love him... I never got into the JBiebs craze, but Cody is my love, and I'm not afraid to admit it), my iPod completely malfunctioned. And then continued to malfunction. And I still had 2 and a half miles to go. It kept stopping my music (but not my workout tracker), and then it would pause my workout when I most definitely didn't hit pause. It was a nightmare. Not sure if it was the heat or the 30 second rainfall, but it made me want a Garmin watch even more. I threw a little tantrum as well when it paused my workout for the 765th (approximate) time and I think I scared the innocent bystander taking out his garbage. Oops!

I talked about running, so let me talk about fiance across the pond.

Tomorrow is our anniversary. It's the first anniversary we have spent apart since we've been together. Part of me is upset and extremely jealous of all those couples who see each other all the time and would never have to dream of spending an anniversary apart. The other part of me is thankful, because this is the last time we will ever have to be apart. The best anniversary present would be if and when (fingers crossed!) my visa gets approved for me to move there.

I didn't get upset until it was our anniversary there in England, but not here (England is 5 hours ahead of Eastern Time Zone) and we were on Skype. That's when it felt real. Long distance loving is really hard, especially right now.

On a happier note, tomorrow also marks one month until my birthday!

See, there's always a silver lining!