The race i didn't race.

Saturday morning i woke up at 4:45am, noticed it was pouring rain, and then ate a clif bar while pondering the fact the i have obviously made some terrible choices in my life.  I had won an entry to the CARA lakefront 10, but because of my training schedule, i needed to run 20 miles.  So i had decided to run 10 in advance of the race.  I was super lucky, because people actually agreed to come meet me at 6am to run in the rain.  I am a special girl.  Luckily the worst of the rain was only for the first couple miles, and then it slowly began to taper off.  By the time the race started, it had completely stopped.  I was still soaking wet though.  


I ran about 8.25 miles with my pace leader david, and Brittany who has her marathon next week!  We ran at an even 10:00 pace, which i am super thankful for, because i might not have been able to stick to that on my own (in the rain) and would have for sure gone out too fast.  After our 8 miles were done, i changed out of my shirt (to feel less wet), ate two gatorade chew things, and ran down to the race.  I had to run pretty fast, because apparently changing my shirt took way to long.  I made it into the starting area as the national anthem was playing, so i only had to stand for about a minute, which was nice.


The race started right at 8, and for me, this was the hardest part.  Because this was a training run, and it was 20 miles, i had to keep myself to a 9:30/9:45 pace so that i didn't burn out in 5 miles.  It made me miserable.  I think 8,000 people passed me in the first mile, which is very confusing in a race of 1,500 people.  Everyone i knew sprinted ahead in hopes of a great time, and i just chugged along like a little wet honey badger.  My plan was to find people running at my pace to talk to, but i was really grouchy the first few miles at the thought of "not pushing myself."


The first 5 miles kind of blew by.  I was a little nervous when we ran along the lakefront because it was very windy, and they had put up the "yellow flag" which i think means "be moderately concerned about the wind blowing you into the lake."  After leaving the danger zone, we went over cricket hill, which i found strangely easy going up, but almost fell going down because of the slippery grass.


Around mile 4-5, i decided it was time to take my gel, and the whole time, all i could think was "everyone is staring at me, and wondering why i am taking a gel 4 miles into this race." I am so vain that i wanted to scream at everyone "it's mile 14!!!"  I have problems.


At about mile 7 (17) I put on my head phones, because i was just feeling kind of lonely.  Most people were running in pairs, and i became a sad lone wolf.  However, listening to guns n roses made it all better, and my last three miles were very speed (relatively)  That last mile sucked in my opinion, mostly because the entire time you can hear the end.  This made it seem really, REALLY long to me.  The last mile seemed more like 4.  When i finally did see the finish line, i went into a maniac sprint, and passed about 6 or 7 people to redeem myself for everyone passing me at first.  I ended up with a respectable 1:33:48, which was right on par with where i should have been.  


The race:
The medal

Very nice.

The t-shirt

Nothing special, but i was glad i got it after the race, i used it to keep warm!

The spectators

It think most people stayed home on account of the weather. (i dont blame them)

The course
- I liked it - it was familiar, but they mixed it up a little so it wasn't boring.  I just hated the last mile wrap-around.  The water placement was excellent, and everything flowed nicely, except where mud/mini-lakes had formed because of the rain


The volunteers
-AMAZING.  especially with that weather.  You guys deserve medals more than we do.


After party
-I feel bad, because this would actually have been a fun party to hang out at if it wasn't cold, rainy, and windy.  I was shivering so bad i was spilling my beer, and that's a crime.


Would i run this again?  Totally.  Is this a PR race? In my opinion, no.  Its a race to have fun at and thats ok with me!

Now its time for "May Madness" To begin, starting next week with the Flying Pig half marathon!!


***Also, if anyone follows me on twitter, my account was hacked.  I'm sorry.  I have a poor understanding of technology at best.