Happy Monday everyone! Today is an AMAZING Monday for me! Why you ask? Because I have NO CLASSES! All I have is a doctor’s appointment in the afternoon! Now don’t be getting to jealous, guess what I get to do with all my free time?
STUDY. Ahhhhhh. I have finals on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, so it’s crunch time! What I’m really looking forward to is NEXT Monday, because that’s when I get to fly home for a couple weeks! So excited!
To entertain you all at your jobs/school today, I thought I would give you my 10 miler re-cap from this Saturday!
My day started off bright and early around 6am when I woke up and started getting myself ready. I always chug some water and drink some coffee. This gets things… moving. TMI? Anyway, at 7:00am I had my pre-race breakfast: piece of Udi’s bread with PB and half a banana:
Before I had breakfast I put all my cold weather running gear on. Of course this included my CW-X compression running tights, and pull-over. It was running ninja all over again!
Yep, I was getting pretty pumped up.
Which is surprising seeing as this is what I saw when I got up that morning. Rain. However, it was 45 degrees! Which is warmer than I’d anticipated, so I was okay with it.
At 7:12am I realized that I missed the bus I had intended to take up to the race start… And freaked out. It came sooner than I expected so I wasn’t ready! To get to the race, I had planned to take a bus up north, and then walk the mile from the bus stop to the race start. However, that wasn’t going to happen anymore, if I waited for the next one I would probably be late.
I ended up grabbing a cab and getting there with PLENTY of time. Too much time really, it was chilly and sprinkling and I just kept walking around to keep warm! Luckily the rain died off for the race, although it was pretty windy out there! At one point I was being sprayed by lake water because of the wind!
Once the race started I was ready to go! The first few miles of the race wound around Montrose Harbor, which is up in Lakeview. I kept thinking to myself that I felt bad for anyone trying to PR this race! A lot of the trails we were on were very tight, and I kept having to slow down quite a lot until I could find a way to squeeze around people. The giant puddles didn’t help either! There was actually one spot under a bridge where we had to stop because everyone was trying to get around a giant puddle of mud! Total mess, but I actually enjoyed it! I felt like those first 4 miles weren’t me running my own race – it was a team of us all trying to beat the obstacles!
They also had the “big hill” during this portion. In the middle of the park there is a grassy hill and they ran the course right up and over it. I saw it coming and got so excited!!! It was fun to power up and over that hill, and everyone was cheering as they made it to the top!
Once we got out of the harbor, things got a little easier since we were all much more spread out. At mile 5 I started working on a GU Gel and finished about 3/4 of it before hitting the water station, having a sip, and tossing the rest.
Miles 5-8 went by fairly quickly, my music REALLY helped keep my going. That was an awesome playlist – it was like each song came on at the perfect time! Once I hit mile 8 I was ready to push it, I kept thinking to myself: “leave it all on the course!” However, once I hit mile 9, it was harder to keep that attitude… that last mile lasted FOREVER! I pushed it though and sprinted to the finish line! I was grinning like crazy! Especially since I noticed that we got race medals…
I love medals.
To get home I had to walk a mile to the bus stop, then take the bus. Let’s just say I was a frozen, but happy mess when I got home:
According to my garmin, I ran 10.12 miles in 1:33:57, for an average pace of 9:17 min/mile. My goal for the race was to run negative splits, meaning that each mile I would get a little bit faster. I generally managed this, although mile 4 was pretty speedy, and I think that was because it included the “big hill”, which I sprinted up and then ran quickly down (thank goodness for gravity). Here are my splits:
Mile 1 – 9:40
Mile 2 – 9:38
Mile 3 – 9:45 (small paths + too many people)
Mile 4 – 9:16
Mile 5 – 9:34
Mile 6 – 9:28
Mile 7 – 9:18
Mile 8 – 9:07
Mile 9 – 8:50
Mile 10 – 8:32
last .12 miles – 7:50 (sprint to the end!)
After I’d showered and had a sweet potato (STARVING) I read a few blogs and then headed over to my brother’s to pick up his car and drive to the suburbs to meet Chelsey for sushi! The sushi was super cheap and super delicious! I had a bit of an issue with them hiding pieces of batter in my tuna sushi… Had to send that back, but otherwise it was SO GOOD! I hadn’t had sushi in ages!
After lunch we went to see The Lucky One, with Zac Effron.
(source)
Um, when did Zac Effron grow up and how can I get my phone number to him?!?! Yea. See the movie. Haha but really, it was a great movie in itself, I really enjoyed the plot and actually didn’t expect the whole ending. The characters, and actors, were great (haha in my non-movie critic opinion). Chelsey was also a huge fan, so at least I have her to back me up.
After the movie I headed back downtown, changed, and went to dinner with my brother, sister-in-law, and then my uncle and cousin who were in town looking at colleges! They were just there for the day, so we had to meet up!
We had dinner at Shaw’s Crab House, and it was a great, upbeat atmosphere. Our waitress was great, and had a wonderful attitude, as did everyone on staff. I had a glass of wine and then ordered the salmon, which came with baby artichokes on the side (I apologize for the dark picture – although at least I have one! I almost started digging in and my uncle reminded me to take a picture for the blog!):
Haha, okay really dark picture. But it was delicious! Everyone really enjoyed their meals and I loved how fresh all the seafood offerings were.
It was a looooong day, but a really fun one! Now I have those fond memories to think of for the next week while I study. And then study some more. Oh and then I might study. There will be froyo involved, don’t worry.
Anyone else run a race in not so awesome weather conditions?
Thoughts on Zac Effron and The Lucky One?