Fitness Things; I Ran a 10K!

If I run one 10K, does that mean I'm a runner now? or do I have to, like, run a marathon or something before I'm a "runner"?

Meh, I still don't think I'm a runner. I'm a yogi who likes to challenge herself, which isn't very "yogic" of me, but I think that my acceptance of that brings me full circle. Right?

Ok, so!

A while back I signed up for this 10K. I had a couple of friends who thought it looked like fun and wanted to do it with me.

Let's cut right to the chase here though. I'm standing in that picture alone. Everybody bailed, which made me pretty sad if we're all being honest here.

Monday before the race I get an email that it has sold out. I was the only one from my crew who'd registered. That was that. I asked my hubs to come support me so I didn't have to go by myself.

He agreed and begrudgingly got up at 6am to get Panda in the car so that they could cheer for me as I finished my first lap and later crossed the finish line. :)

I stole this from the Awesome 80s Run facebook page

Have I mentioned yet that I'm not a runner?

I started "jogging" a few years ago. I had a lot of free time when Tim and I were living on opposite ends of the state. I would jog about a mile and a half down a beautiful and dangerous canyon road by my parents' house and then jog back while listening to audiobooks - mostly Sookie Stackhouse. Don't knock it til you try it.

Once Tim moved down to LA and we moved closer to the malls and further from the trails, I ran much much less. I think I managed to get out and run a total of twice during the year we lived in our first apartment. There's a big apartment complex across the street from our current place. They have a jogging trail running around the approx. 1 sq mile property that we've used a few times. On Panda and my most recent trip, we almost got hit by a woman in an Acura who didn't look in the crosswalk before starting her right turn. I screamed my head off at her. I had never before in my life yelled at a stranger so much as when I saw my puppy's life flash before my eyes. The experience has put a bit of a damper on my desire to jog outside near my house.

I did manage to do some "training" on the treadmill at our gym in the weeks week leading up to the 10K - ran five miles one time, which really helped me feel less scared and more prepared, which was really nice.

On the day of the race, we got up at 6:30 and hit the road about 7:15am for a race that wouldn't start until 9. We had a lot of spare time, so I ended up with some pictures like this.

There was a guy dressed like Michael Jackson getting the crowd pumped for the run.

Panda wanted to play.

I started my run with the second wave. It went a little something like this...

Lap 1

I picked out a woman who was going roughly the same pace I was. She was going a little faster, but I made it my goal not to let myself fall too far behind her. She was a skinny blond woman in her 40s or 50s. I had to at least keep up.  When we got to the water station, she stopped running, I went on ahead of her and I never saw her again. Had to find someone else to challenge me, so I could push myself to keep up, to not stop running. I grabbed a cup of water and didn't stop running - ended up splashing water all over myself. A pair of girls in tutus up ahead were keeping a pretty steady pace. New challengers, and I didn't have to worry about losing them - they were in flippin' tutus. Halfway between the water station and the start of the second lap, one of the tutu girls stopped running. The other kept it up for another half a mile, but eventually gave up too. I was so disappointed. I wanted to stop -  to tell her she had to keep going, she had to keep pushing me to keep going... but after I thought that for long enough, I could see the finish line off in the distance. I just had to get through there and around the Rose Bowl loop one more time. That pushed me to the halfway point.

Lap 2

As I crossed the halfway mark, I didn't see Tim and Panda anywhere. I wondered if they'd gone for a walk or if I'd already passed them. Then I saw them under the shade of a big tree as I made my turn around the Rose Bowl. I was tired, but I kept telling myself I was halfway there. I just had to do it one more time. And I was thirsty, but I'd be back at the water station in no time, right? Tim yelled that they'd be waiting for me right there when I finished the race, and they would have plenty of hydration. Relief. I would have water. 

I wasn't keeping  up with myself. My brain wanted to run faster than my legs. My brain wanted to run as fast as all of the people that were passing me. So many people passed me. It felt like the entire race was passing me and I was passing no one... until the people that passed me started stopping to walk, and I started passing walkers... because I refused to walk, even if I couldn't run very quickly, I wouldn't walk. 

I rounded the corner of the golf course, looking forward to the water station, but when I get there all the water was gone. Did this mean that I was the slowest or that they were poor planners and didn't get enough?  I'm going with B.

The last 2 miles seemed to go by pretty quickly - even though I wasn't moving very quickly. They may have run out of water cups, but a quarter mile down the road there was a drinking fountain, which promptly sprayed me in the face...a lot. It was kinda shaddy, but also kinda nice. 

I was a little bummed to have lost my momentum, but I pushed right along to the end - was stopped again when parking lot attendants deemed the space in front of me big enough to let a few cars through. 

And then I rounded into the final straightaway towards the finish line. Hooray for people who cheer for people on their way to the finish. They make it better. And as I did my best to leap over the finish line, the photographer snapped a couple shots I am too cheap to pay for, but here are the watermarked versions...

These are the faces you make when you run a 10K alone. 

The clock at the finish read 58:23. I could live with that. :)

edit: my actual time was 1:06 and change. I guess I started before I was supposed to??