Racing Season

Finally, it's road racing season again!  My competitive side has been waiting since last November for it to come around again.  Ok, so I could have run a few 5K's in the cold months, but I'm not a cold weather runner.  Today I ran my first race, a 10K.  It's the first time I ran a 10K race.  I'll be honest, a 10K race is a bit intimidating because it seems like those that run and are fast, run it faster than my 5K pace.  I just didn't want to come in dead last and feel silly.  Today though, I figured I'd run.  I went to work, reported off at the end of my shift in a timely manner and was able to get down to registration with time to spare.  I signed up, and it was only in the 40's...usually not a temperature I like to run in.  It was a very informal race - no race bib numbers, no "official" time, etc.  It was just mapped out over a college campus.  Finally we were off, and I started off feeling pretty good.  The course was terrible wasn't great.  It wound all over campus and it was sometimes hard to figure out which way we were supposed to go.  Twice I had to stop and try to figure out which way I was supposed to go.  Thankfully, I chose correctly.  Others did not.  I was probably in the first 1/3 of the pack and as we're running the last 1-2 miles, a few groups of girls that I know were behind me were suddenly way ahead of me.  I'm pretty sure one of the places where it was confusing which way to go is where they turned.  And by turning early, they skipped probably an entire mile of the race.  No one ever passed me so I know that had to be the case.  I initially thought "Dang it!  I turned wrong and I'm running more distance than I should be!" but 2 other runners were right ahead of me and I just followed them to the finish line.  Turns out we were correct.  I think I was the last to cross the line, something I dread, but my time was 1:02:18.  They had a clock we could look at as we crossed the line so I at least had a time to go with my effort.  I was pretty happy with my time and I wondered if maybe it wasn't exactly 10K but I had tried out my friends garmin and it did say that I ran 10K.  Plus those other people didn't run the entire distance.  I'm sure they were pretty pumped when they saw their time, but if they ever run another 10K race again, they'll be sorely disappointed in their time because of missing that last mile or so.  Saturday is a half marathon I'm running.  I had been very worried about how I was going to do, but I think it will be fine.  I won't be breaking any records because I'm not adequately trained, but this 10K  gave me hope.  I felt good at the finish, I didn't walk at all, didn't even drink any water to rehydrate.  My competitive drive is back and I'm ready to run.