Toad Suck Daze 10k

Cabot women with some of their bling!

It was cold afterwards!!!!!!!!!

Quick recap of race #8 in the ARKRRCA Grand Prix series the Toad Suck Daze 10k. First year for me to race the 10k, I've ran the 5k the previous 2 years and in 2007 this was my first race ever..........the start of the insanity! A friend of ours told James today that they have this neat little treatment for mental disorders called shock therapy. Really?! Hey, I'm not the one that has to take 3 pills a day just for high blood pressure. Although we did have a few people watching that called the entire lot of us insane, LOL and I must admit there was a time or two today when I was inclined to agree with them. But, hey I'm not alone, there were almost 400 of us just in the 10k, no clue on the number running the 5k.

So let's see what did we have?

Torrential rains-check

Ankle deep (and then some) puddles-check

Lightning (eeek) between mile 3-4-check

Creeks and ditches thisclosetooverflowing-check

People in cars grumbling at us for blocking their road-check

Some nausea and aching butt muscle-check

Great conversation-check

Satisfaction of completing a race in challenging conditions-CHECK!

Company of awesome friends as obsessed as you are--DOUBLE CHECK!!!

No personal record today for me other than a course p.r. but I'm not the least bit unhappy about how I did. This wasn't a race that I felt great running, more of a git-r-done (yeah, I know that phrase is way past over-done but that explains today perfectly!). Managed to catch up with Brenda and Cindy after fighting my way through the middle of the pack but today was Cindy's day, I couldn't hang with her at all, the force was strong with her (me a geek? maybe a little!). She did fantastic! Surprised me when I caught up with Eugene, unfortunately he pulled a hamstring today but he still finished a few seconds behind me. Normally he would be close to 10 minutes ahead.

Ok, was nauseous between miles 3 and 4, my butt had started hurting (why?), and I think my shirt and shoes weighed 10 lbs more than when I started. Normally, I love running in the rain if it's not too cold but not today. Probably had a lot to do with me not wearing a cap and having rain pelt me right in the eyes, yuck. Despite all the moisture I desperately needed a drink of water and thank goodness Brenda caught me when I stopped at the last water stop, she gave me a much needed boost.

Results--52:43, 158/368 overall, 36/166 female, 4/20 age group. I did get the 3rd place age group award because Lisa F. who's the same age as me took 2nd place female masters. She's soooo fast, she started behind us and still blew by most of us, LOL! 46:37, isn't that amazing?!

Next weekend will be the Women Run Arkansas 5k. The Women Run Arkansas club sponsors running clinics every spring that are designed to help women get started walking and running. Great program and the clinics are free, the 5k is optional but I think it's a great morale boost for everybody that participates. This will be the first year that I've run the race and I'm not able to participate in the clinics because they're held on days that I'm out on the road so for me the only way to support this is to get out and run and cheer the ladies on. I know most of the ladies in the Cruisers have put in major amounts of time with the Cabot clinic.