Fitness Things; I Ran a (third) 10K

Saturday, December 7, 2013, my good friend Katye and I got up long before the crack of dawn and drove our little selves down to Santa Monica to run 6.2 miles in the Santa Monica to Venice Christmas 10K.

First, let's all just take a minute to appreciate my awesome race day outfit - the hat I got at Target the night before, 49ers jersey from my loving husband, and amazing red tights I borrowed from my big sis. I felt a little like the ghost of Christmas football. If that's a thing. ALSO, it's been COLD, so I'm totally wearing my favorite Zella live-in compression leggings underneath the red ones.

Mile 1
I felt like I was moving at a good clip, but everyone was passing me. I also felt like I had a lot of rust to shake off, so that first mile was actually kind of hard. I committed to myself that I would keep my pace as long as I could and before I knew it, the mile marker showed up and I started mile 2...

Miles 2 and 3
Somehow along the line, I missed the mile two marker. I think I did that in my last 10K too (weird). So, miles 2 and 3 just felt like one really long mile.  Somewhere in there was the first water station, so I thought it would be a good time to have my Strawberry Cliff Shot Gel. Then the gloves came off! I mean literally. Katye lent me her extra pair of running gloves because of the cold and I was starting to get uncomfortably hot somewhere in the second mile. I took them off and carried them as soon as I'd freed my hands after having the cliff gel.

Terrible picture, but the only one of both of us

Oh, AND it started to sprinkle - or maybe heavily mist.

Mile 4
This actually went by really fast. I didn't use a GPS app to track my pace, but I did make sure to check the time right around every mile marker to make sure I was staying pretty steadily at a 10 minute mile. It really kept me motivated to see that almost exactly 10 minutes had gone by between each mile marker.

Mile 5
We ran over the Venice Canals. I wish I'd taken a picture. I'd never actually seen them in person before. Kind of lame since I live in LA, but I never had a reason to go there. People have gondolas...dude.

Mile 6 (and the last .2)
Mile 6 was great. I was tired, but when I stopped for a second to take a sip of water, I got a firm pat on the back and a thumbs up from a stranger. I was in it to win it after that.(Thanks, random stranger!) I kept my pace consistent. Checked my time to make sure I was still working at roughly a 10 minute mile and when I was I was relieved, but determined to keep pace.
The last .2 miles I was feeling great. I had worked through some acheyness earlier on, but it subsided by the end. I didn't quite have the energy to speed up and sprint to the finish, but I kept my pace, maybe picked it up a little bit.

Here I am seconds away from the finish line. It may look like a decent distance, but it took about two seconds to get from here to there. So, the clock read 1:01:38 as I crossed the finish line. Winter Wonderland was playing on my iPod.

But if you're familiar with races, you know that your actual time is going to vary a little depending on when you crossed the timing pad to start the race.
If we want to get real picking about it, TECHNICALLY, I started a 7:30:08, which means my time was actually 1:01:30... and my average pace was 9:55 per mile.

And for some reason, that 8 second difference feels worlds closer to being able to finish in under an hour - a goal I set for myself a while back. Originally I was going to put it on my 30 x 30 to run a 10K in under an hour, but decided not to since I didn't want to have so many running related goals.

Almost as soon as I crossed the finish line, it really started to rain. For the first minute or so I barely noticed it, but just as we decided to head back to the car, it began to pour! I was so happy Katye had remembered to bring an umbrella.

The rain eased up when we got close to the car. I set up my phone and the umbrella to snap some pictures of us in down dog for day 7 of my photo challenge.

I don't remember where - maybe in mile 4 - this guy tried to get my attention and say "go niners!", but I had my headphones in and my music blaring, so it took me until long after he'd turned around to keep running to get the dumbfounded look off my face. Big fat sorry to that guy. I didn't mean to be a jerk.

To sum up;
I beat my PR for 10K time, previously coming in at 1:06 in the Awesome 80's Run for a solid 11 minute mile.
It rained.
I wore two pair of pants.
Gloves were not a good idea.
Big thanks to the 2 guys who motivated me - especially thumbs up guy, you rock!

I can't wait to do another one!