abka | race!

I ran the Cherry Blossom 10 mile race this morning. I feel pretty proud of my performance!

Goals:
-run the race: yay I showed up ready to go at 7:30am
-finish the race: yay, 10 miles done. This is first time I've actually run 10 miles, I only trained to 8.
-finish strong: yay, at the end I was tired and wanted to walk, but wasn't exhausted and didn't want to die. I didn't collapse on the ground, but instead was able to stretch then walk the mile to the car no problem.
-don't hurt myself: I was pretty comfortable the entire race. I dressed appropriately for the temperature. My foot had been bothering me last week. I started to feel it around mile 7, but it didn't start to hurt until the last mile and once I stopped running it was fine.
-run the entire time: I jogged almost the entire thing. I did take three walking breaks totaling under 5 min. Two were under a minute while I drank some gatorade, and one was a two-minute walking break around mile 8.
-don't get kicked off the course by exceeding the 2:20:00 time limit: yay my official "gun time" was 2:14:30 (that's a 13.27 minute mile), but since I was in the last wave I spent 10-15 minutes walking to the starting line.
-try for a goal time of 2 hours (12 min. mile): yay me! I just made my goal, my net time was 1:59:09 (11:55 min mile).
-don't be last: According to my net time my place was 5276 out of 5502. (According to gun time 5317 out of 5502 women) There were about 10,700 people in the 10-mile race total, but men weren't included in the total stats so I was near the end. And I was number 1571 out of 1621 people in my age-group (women 25-29).
-have fun: yay! the race course was awesome! The cherry blossoms are out, and we ran around the tidal basin, across the memorial bridge to VA, and then up and back on rock creek parkway along the Potomac. It was stunning. The weather was great, it was in the 50s, overcast with a little breeze, no direct sun and no rain.

So I really didn't do badly considering that this is my first race ever. Spent the afternoon showering, stretching, eating and resting. My legs feels a little sore, but not too bad. Yay me! (and yay Denis who got up at 6am on a Sunday to support me). Hopefully after a week off I'll start looking for another race to train for. I don't think I want to go any higher than ten miles (my sister suggested a half-marathon, but I don't think I'm ready for 13 yet), but another 10 mile, or even a 10k where I can work on my time would be good.