2 weeks and a 10k

Today marks 2 weeks to the Columbus Marathon! O. M. G.

As you can tell from my other posts this week, I'm starting to get just slightly emotional about this race. I'm fairly confident that I'll cross that finish line no matter what, but not as confident as I usually am entering a race. I have 7 hours to finish the race. That means that as long as I go faster than a 16 minute mile I will cross that finish line and officially finish my first 26.2. My slowest training runs were still faster than a 15 minute mile, so I should be fine.

Have you gotten sick of this one yet? I need to remind myself of this on a daily basis!

In other news....today I completed my first 10k distance race. It also happened to be my 6th race of this calendar year. I was going to post a separate official race report, but I think I'll just discuss it in this post.

I had not yet completed a 10k, other than the one that was part of the Olympic triathlon that I did back in August, and I was excited to get yet another instant PR (personal record). I completed the Towpath 10k this morning, which was part of the Towpath Marathon, Half-Marathon and 10k. It was a bit chilly this morning, but this is a beautiful course this time of year with all the changing leaves.

It's still kind of new to me to go to races completely alone. I think the only other race I went to alone was the Twinsburg Duathlon this year...and for that one my husband and kids ended up coming to see me cross the finish line. So, it was a little more boring than usual waiting for the race to start. I usually have someone to talk to. Today I was texting SIL while waiting in the line for the porta potty! I did spend a few minutes talking to one lady because I commented about her shirt. She had a shirt that on the back said "Caution: I take frequent walk breaks and I WILL finish strong" It was awesome. She obviously does the Jeff Galloway method as well. We chatted about that for a while and then I moved to my place in line. I always try to stay at the back because I know I'm slow and feel bad for those people who have to weave in and out of everyone when it starts (although, I also think it's their own fault if they don't get themselves lined up closer to the start!).

Anyway, so for this race the 10k and half marathoners started together in a totally separate location from the marathoners. It was still quite congested and after the race started my timer went off to alert me to walk. I always try to be aware of my surroundings when I'm about to walk so I don't trip anyone and I noticed that it was really just too crowded. I decided to just keep running. Then, I was trying to psych myself up to run the entire 10k without stopping!

Back at the end of August I started doing all my treadmill runs without stopping. So, I have a month under my belt of running 2-4 miles without stopping. But, I've done 4 miles once and that was the farthest I've gone. I soon decided that it'd be stupid to try to keep running when I clearly had not trained for that. Also, this race was just another race to put on my schedule, it wasn't one that I had any real goals for. My mind is focused for 26.2. So, I took my first walk break after about 14 minutes of running. They didn't have mile markers at every mile so when I stopped I realized that we had gone over a mile already (which, after 14 minutes we SHOULD have, but since I hadn't seen the markers I was getting worried). The rest of the race I maintained my 4/1 intervals. The only "extra" walk breaks I took was when I approached a water stop. I would briefly walk to drink and then if I wasn't on a scheduled walk break I would immediately start running again.

I felt good. I started composing another blog post in my head (that one will be to come still...). My legs were feeling slightly fatigued by the end, but nothing terrible. I pushed myself, but I had something left in the tank at the end. I actually passed a woman approaching the finish! I NEVER do that! And it felt awesome! It was also an out and back course so once you turn towards the finish you can see if anyone is behind you. And, guess what? There were a lot of people behind me!

I have no pictures because I was by myself (boring, I know). The official results are not posted yet, but my Garmin said 1:18:34 and I forgot to turn it off right away so I'm thinking my official time will be around 1:17 something. We'll see. An instant PR, but even a PR based on the time of my 10k as part of the triathlon. All in all I am quite pleased with my run this morning....now 14 days left until I'm running the streets of Columbus! I think it'll be kind of neat to see how much I remember from when I was there for grad school! That was a long time ago though.....