Good race...but not as good as I had hoped.

I think my skin was in shock from being revealed to the elements. This time last week, I was out running the same course in my winter running pants, a jacket, gloves and a hat. Today I ran the course in shorts and a sleeveless singlet. A bit of a change.

I honestly also did not remember the course being so damn hilly. It seemed like around every corner there was another hill. ANYWAY.... the report.

I got to the race site early - like 7:10am. The start was at 8. My Run Club was meeting around 7:30, but I wanted time to relax, find the port-o-potties, etc. Which I was able to do with no problem. The group members started to meet up, and a few people snapped a group photo. I'm hoping to snag one from Facebook here in a few..... Anyway, we all wander up and pick random places in the starting chute. There were about 1500 people I believe., so it was a packed start. I waved down one of my running buddies, she joined me and BOOM - time to go!

We start down the road, and as soon as we make our first left, we get chuted into one lane of traffic. It was packed - and continued to stay packed until about Mile 4. At about .75 miles, my shoelace came untied. What? Really? I pulled over to deal with that, then jumped back in. We ran through Wildwood Park, and that's merely a paved trail. There are some killer hills in the park, but it was almost impossible to take advantage of the downhills because of the traffic.

After the park, it's neighborhoods for most of the race. Because we had run the course the week before, I knew where I was and what to expect next. The gradual 3/4 mile uphill on Clark State Rd., the continued uphills in various neighborhoods from miles 6-8 though are something I did not remember at all (how is that??) I walked through each water stop, ingested some Gu chomps, then went back at it.

Not much to report though from Miles 8-10. It was interesting to listen to people. Friends wanting to quit and other friends convincing them to keep going. People singing with their music. People gasping for air so loudly you thought they may fall over. And one lady talking about my awesome calves :p

The last .5 miles was an uphill on Hamilton Rd. I pushed with all I could - turned out I finished at about 1:37:31 (9:37 pace according to Garmin - will post official results once they are posted) - 7 minutes over my big goal and 2 minutes over my "you can do this" goal. But I'm okay with it - I still averaged less than 10 minutes a mile - which is awesome. And it was a beautiful day to run. I was really hoping I could pull off the 1:30, bit no go. This was a reminder I cannot neglect my run (which I have kind of been doing over the past couple weeks), and I have to get back to some speed work.

And this time next weekend, I will hopefully be kicking back some brewskis celebrating completing the Kansas Half-Marathon with my buddy, D!!!!!! WOO HOO! Let "taper week" begin :-)