Winter Runderland 10K

Today was the 3rd Annual Winter Runderland 10K, put on by our local running store Manhattan Running Company. I am so glad to have local races and I so appreciate the work that goes into planning an event like this. I used to be an event planner, so that probably makes me appreciate this a little more, but getting this together is no small task. So hats off to my friends at MRC for making this a great day!

I ran this race last year - in the freezing rain! No rain in the forecast today (thank goodness, that was awful, but we did get badass status for running it in my book) When I woke up at 8am today it was 13 degrees. BRRRRRRR. Luckily the race start was 3:00 this afternoon so it had a chance to warm up to a balmy 34!

I was hoping to get a big group of us together for the race today, but everyone seemed to have other things going on today. There is one friend who is always good for a race....yep, Russ :) Russ started running last summer and has already run two 1/2 marathons, several 5Ks and today we embarked on his second 10K. Russ has an amazing story of he and his super cute little wife Jaime finding a way to change their lives by health, wellness, exercise & weight loss. Read all about Russ's Thanksgiving reflection on his blog Thunder Road Racing. It's an awesome post. I wish Russ would post some pics of he & Jaime's transformation - it's incredible. (hint, Russ, post the pics!)

Ok on to raceday. After fussing about my clothing choice....Russ & I headed to the start. We stayed in the car as long as we could messing around with our ipods, race bibs, shoe laces, gloves, etc. Noone would ever put this much thought into a normal 6 miler - raceday is just crazy. Well, I mean it makes us crazy. My shoe laces aren't tight enough. Uh, now they are too tight. Should I wear these gloves or these gloves? How many layers should I wear? Does my hair look stupid in these piggytails? Ugh. I spent pretty much the whole day obsessing.

Our goal today was 60 min or under.

We started out strong with mile 1 at 9:40. But I was really uncomfortable (like I always am at mile 1....but my freaking ipod got paused somehow, and it was buried under too many dang layers to get it going again. Crap. No music. I had my playlist picked *just* right to bring me strong into the finish. I knew messing with it would screw up my pace, so, gonna have to go without it.

Mile 2, lookin' good. Mile 3, yep, right on target. Mile 4, good. Here we are finishing up mile 4 with a thumbs up :) Mile 5 we slowed down a bit - our second trip up the hill. We lost some time there and hit the mile 5 marker at 50:45. Dang it. We had 9 minutes to get the last 1.2 in. I knew I could do this - just yesterday I ran a 9:00 & an 8:30 1/2 mile on the treadmill at the end of my 5 miler. But I knew we'd be cutting it really close. I knew mile 6 had a few small hills at the front, but the finish is all downhill and should be enough to bring us in.

At the finish we had to come across a busy street, and police were stopping traffic. When we were approaching the intersection I saw the cop waving some cars through - I said to Russ 'that dude better stop those cars, cause I'm NOT stopping!' I was going for it. Yeah, I don't think he heard me because he probably had Miley Cyrus blaring in his headphones by this point. LOL And yes, I was jealous since I had nothing but my wheezing to listen to.

We hit the mile 6 marker.....and then hit 1:00 on my watch. DANG IT. We didn't make it. SO FREAKING CLOSE. I will tell you this though, I am pretty proud of that last mile being a 9:15. We finished up with a 1:01:01. I will obsess about that 1 minute for a long time I'm sure. What we could have done different....could we have kicked in faster somewhere....if my new favorite Pink song was playing my ears could I have run faster....if I hadn't ran a hard treadmill workout yesterday could I have made it....blah, it's starting already.

But here are the good things about that 1:01:01:

**Seeing Russ's family there to support him was awesome. Having my hubs and kiddo driving around the course yelling at us was awesome. Such troopers coming out in the fa-reezing cold to support our insane habit. How would we do this day after day, race after race without family & friends supporting us?

**My race time last year for this race was 59:03. So much has happened this past year. Surgery, rehab, getting back, etc. When I started back to running in August I was at 11 min miles on a good day. Running 6.2 at a 9:50 average and being only 2 minutes off from where I was last year? Yep, I'll take that.

**This was a 6 1/2 minute PR for Russ from his 10K in August! 6 minute PR in a 10K is huge and awesome and awesomely huge. That's a whole minute faster per mile. Holy crap!

**I didn't hurl like I *almost* *kinda* did last year.

**I took home a sa-weet 2nd place age group medal! I hope I never get ho-hum about getting a raceday medal. I know some people have so many of them that they aren't that big of a deal to them anymore, but I love, love, LOVE bringing home a race day medal. If I could wear it to work tomorrow without everyone talking about how crazy I was, I totally would.

Man, I LOVE race day. No sleep the night before, obsessing about every little detail, running with my friends, having our families there, working hard and being proud....the whole thing.

What a great way to end the 2010 racing year!