Race Day

It is well into the evening of race day now and I am still riding on a high from early this morning. The household woke up early and was out the door quickly after everyone had a small something to eat. Once we got there the crowd was still fairly small and it was no problem getting in line to complete registration and receive my t-shirt for the event. Then there was a lot of standing around waiting for the race to begin. The longer we waited the more anxiety and nervousness showed itself. I caught myself saying, "If I complete it.." not "When I complete it..". But once the countdown to begin ended and I was out on the road I shook it off and kept focused on finishing the time just like I do on my normal runs around the neighbourhood. 

My husband suspected that with all the training that I have been doing I should be able to come in under a half hour. A few times during the run I started to concern myself with the time and started gearing up to push harder but I quickly turned my mind to the present and reminding myself that my goal was not a time goal it was to complete the run without walking. In fact, I didn't even wear my watch. I thought that if I wore it there was a possibility it would throw me off of my focus. I am glad that I didn't bring it. I will try to remember this for future races.

This particular race doesn't have chips that active at the start line and turn off at the finish line to provide you with an exact time of completion. My husband watched out for me and tried to time it as accurately as possible. I ended up coming in at 31 minutes. This calculates out to a 6 minute and 12 second pace. Not bad. Not under the 30 minutes though. 

Preparing for the run, I was most worried about the bridge that is around the 3.5K marker. I remember from last year it being the time when I walked the most and when my mental motivation broke down. I was fearful that this would happen again and thought about it every time I did the hill strides during training. So today when we came around a corner and I could see a sea of people running and walking up an inclined street leading up to the base of the bridge, I slightly panicked. All this time I thought it would be that I just had to push my body and mentally work through a steep hill up a bridge and instead it was at least half a kilometre of ascending road plus the bridge! It took some focus and motivation to just take one stride at a time but I made it through very well. 

The descent of the hill marks less than a kilometre to the finish line. It was not difficult to push through the portion of the race. I came in smiling. 

No knee issues. No stopping. No problem (?) - not so sure about that. But so very proud of myself for following through on this challenge and completing the full training schedule. It has been a life-changing experience in terms of learning my mental and physical abilities - they are as limited as I want them to be. I earned the success I had today. I am going to put it on my motivation shelf to draw on when I need it sometime, but for now, I am going to quickly move onto a new goal. Beginning to train for a 10K starts this week!