Cold Wet Awesome Race

As I was lying in bed this morning listening to the wind howl, and the rain pelt on the window, I was thinking “am I really going to run a race in a few hours?”  It was pretty much raining sideways…and it was cold!

However, I had already talked my friend into not bailing last night, and Brian wasn’t deterred by the rain, so I hopped out of bed and got dressed. 

My usual pre-run breakfast is bread+nut butters of sorts.  This morning I had 1 slice of toast, cut in half.

The left half is Barney Butter + Strawberry Jam

The right is peanut butter + marshmallow cream!

And we were off!

Remember that big green bow-tie…yeah I didn’t really know what to do with it haha.  Thought about this:

But with the heavy rain, I needed a hat. 

When the race began I had the bow over my hat, but shortly after it just ended up around my wrist.

Brian had a festive hat too, but he said he ditched his somewhere along the race route on someone fence post haha

I started out a little faster than normal…I think it was just the general energy of the crowd.  For the awful weather we had, there were still THOUSANDS out to run. 

I didn’t have any sort of watch on me, so I had no idea of time, but felt like I was going a little faster than normal.  I actually went into the race not really worrying about trying to reach my goal of under 30min because I figured the weather would slow me down.

There were many times I wanted to walk, but only stopped for a few seconds at the water station.  I was really struggling to finish, it felt so much harder than normal…but I knew once we reached the bike path it was the final stretch and when I was close enough to see the clock it read 29:53 (!!!!), suddenly I sprinted ahead and crossed just as it was turning from 29:59 to 30!  It’s amazing what your legs can do with a little motivation. 

I was SO excited!  My official my guntime was 30:01, but my net time was 29:10!!!!!!!!! 

(it’s hard to tell in the photo, but I’m soaked to the bone here)

I shaved 1 min 40 sec off my last 5k time! 

So pumped!  No wonder it felt so much harder this time, but I guess if it’s easy you’re not going to make much progress. 

I’m blogging by the roaring fireplace, and foresee and early bedtime…I’m beat!