Tag: MLgoals

I will post about my DC/Baltimore Roadtrip a little later, but I’ll just jump into the race itself. I will also post how last year’s race went in italics. WHAT A DIFFERENCE!

I was a good girl Saturday and only had 3 Strongbows with lunch the rest of the day I only drank water. Last year while in DC my friend Kelly and I thought day drinking would be okay if we stopped at night, however day drinking leads to night drinking and we went to bed late and drunk.

I went to bed around 11pm in my comfy hotel bed and woke up at 6:30am. We crashed at our friend Josh’s place and I drunkenly slept on a futon and then while trying to snooze my alarm I shut it off and didn’t get up until like 7:30am.

I took my time getting ready (I already had all my stuff laid out), I wore dri fit clothes, compression socks, and my brooks. I also stretched, ate oatmeal and walked about a mile with W to the race. I was hung over, running late, grabbing things like a crazy person, I also wore a cotton race tshirt that was too big and new yoga pants that were very long. I also ate like a quarter of a burned bagel with cream cheese while trying to chug water. My friend Josh drove us and dropped us off.

Headed straight for packet pick up to get my number, chip and shirt. I put on my number and chip before stalking down David Cook. We picked up our race stuff the day before, but had no idea how the chip worked nor a good technique to pin on our bibs. I was too busy stalking David Cook to care about specifics of the race.

I made my way to the starting line near the front (about 10 people in) where I sipped on some water (I generally run with a water bottle these days). We lined up towards the back of the runners and before the walkers. I was thirsty already.

Once the race started I took off and really didn’t have to dodge many people. I felt good, I felt confident. The race started and we didn’t even get moving for a little but until our wave crossed. At that point there were SO many people. I must have been dodging people for a mile. the whole race I was in a swarm of people.

Within the first half mile I spot David Cook running a little a head of me. I tweak. Do I slow down and keep pace with him? I REALLY thought about it, but I wanted to SMASH my time last year. I was serious about speed training and I knew I had it in me to kick this ass’s race. So as I come upon David Cook I touch his arm and smile/give him a thumbs up (I think – I was too busy nearly dying of excitement). He gives me a warm smile back. I soak it in before taking off and blowing past him. Touching him and having him smile at me added more fuel to my running fire.

Because my nike+ is broken I was concerned about pace/speed – so when I crossed the start I turned on the stopwatch on my Ipod to try and monitor my time. They race had Kilo and Mile signs. My 1K time was like 4:30ish (DAYUM) my time at 1M was (7:55). I was focused on running as hard and fast as I could. I pretty much only ran among a small group of runners for most of the race. I really got to enjoy the course and where I was running. It was a very cool route. I RAN HARD the whole time. I tried to ease back a touch in the middle of mile 2 because I wanted to end strong. Around Mile 2 I saw I was around 19 minutes. As soon as I saw the finish line in the distance I gave it all I had. My veins were literally pumping battery acid at that point (my friends as the watched a few meters before the finish line said I looked miserable running and it made them not want to run ever – I was just focused and intense). I was pissed the last tenth of a mile a dad with a running stroller goes flying past me – talk about an ego blow. Either was I saw the clock at 26 minutes and I was in AWE. As soon as I crossed that finish line I felt no pain. I announced how great I felt and how awesome the race was (which my friends didn’t believe because of how red/purple, sweaty and miserable I looked to them while running). I swear I could have ran the 5K again. I felt on top of the world. I hoped to run the whole thing, but I just couldn’t I need a bunch of walking breaks. There were so many people and I was dehydrated. I also only saw Kilo signs and when I saw the 3K sign – I thought it was 3 miles and got really excited and ran hard only to then realize when I saw 4K that the race was will far from over. I was happy I finished the race, but I felt terrible, I wasn’t happy with my time and most of all I was disappointed in myself and my lack of preparing properly for the race like I knew I should have.

Official Race Time – 26:28 (8:31 pace). Official Race Time 33:29 (10:46 pace).

So on the first anniversary of my first race ever on the same course – I knocked 7 minutes and 1 second off my 5K time. I also was so much more prepared and knowledable about preparation, training and the race itself. I hope to run this race every year. It means a lot to me and it raises money to find a cure for brain cancer (David Cook lost his brother to it 3 years ago). If you’re interested in still donating visit my site.