A Tale of 3 Races

Occasionally I race. And occasionally I do ok at it but that wasn't the case in the 2012 Toad Suck 10k.  I can speak from experience that going to a rock show the night before and getting approximately 4 hours of sleep after being on your feet for about the same amount of time is NOT good race prep.  Makes me wonder if the girl who showed up in uggs (to the Lacuna Coil gig, not the race!) might have had the right idea after all, lol.

Since my legs were DEAD from the night before my plan was just to show up and get the mileage done especially since it turned out to be such a muggy day--it was incredibly hard to breathe.  If I hadn't already paid for this race I would have just skipped it, grand prix or not......So with my "race strategy" settled, I lined up in the back, started out easy and just kept getting slower with each mile.  I chatted with people, stopped at every water stop, took the time to find the trash bins to throw my cups away and just generally lolly-gagged about. Oh yeah, this was not a brag-worthy 10k on my part, it ended up being my second slowest one to date and my slowest was just after recovering from a bout of bronchitis.

Over a thousand women lining up 

Second race of my 3-race blog post was the Women Can Run 5k, the race that marks the end or "graduation" of the Women Run Arkansas 10 week clinic.  Oh my gosh, it was so amazing to get to participate in the program this year!!! While I managed to do quite well this time around, the real successes are all the women who never believed they could run or walk half a mile much less 3.1 miles.  Truly amazing getting to see the joy--and sometimes disbelief--on so many faces at the end of the race.  I could go on and on about how fabulous the WCR program is and never come close to doing it justice.  

As far as my race, it's one of the few where I'm happy with how I performed and it's rare that I can say that. Mile splits were almost dead on with each other (7:43, 7:40, 7:44 per garmin) and while this wasn't a 5k pr, I'm within spitting distance of setting another if my training continues to go as well as it has.  

The final race was the Jesse is Awesome Half Marathon the day after the WCR 5k.  Again this wasn't a "race" race for me, more of a chance to participate and support an event that some great friends put on.  Hey, who can pass up getting up early on a Sunday morning to run 13.1 miles in gorgeous weather???? Add in cheering sections, water stops, friends who are equally crazy to hang out with and it makes for a perfect start to the day.  Even better was getting to run with Tala and meeting someone whose name I recognized from the grand prix roster (she's in my age group) although I'm sure they were ready to stuff a gag in my mouth  by the end because of my talking so much., lol.  

Running and smiling :-)