Resolution Run

Last year I began doing some races, and quickly decided I loved it.  The more I do it, the more I love it.  I began last year with a trail running series.  There's a total of 4 races and I did 2 of them, got sidelined by an injury on the last one.

This year however my husband and I decided to sign up for all 4 races in the series in advance.  It cost less for 4 races in advance than it would have for 3 races if we signed up on an individual basis.

The first race was January 1st ... an 8K trail run .... they call it the Resolution Run.

We've never been big partiers on New Years Eve, but we do usually hang out with friends, eat too much food, maybe have a few drinks and stay out late.  So the prospect of getting up early to do an 8K run on New Years Day was a little daunting, but we decided to do it anyway. 

However, we still went out to a friends house, ate too much food, stayed out until 2AM.  My husband had 3 or 4 beers, but I wasn't into it and just had Diet Pepsi & a tea (such a party girl - hahha).  We had to get up at 8AM to get to the run on time.  So the night out, coupled with virtually no sleep the night before ... I was beat! 

The race started at 10AM and we got there about 20 minutes early to sign in and do a warm-up run.  Boy did we need it too, we had that really cold, miserable, damp weather that is typical here on the coast.  Your bones freeze!

It was a nice course, almost no hills, and nice terrain.  Though lots of tree roots and rocks along the route, plus a couple logs to jump along the way.  There was about 200 people running and the beginning of the race was crazy.  You could barely move through the narrow trails.  It took about 4-5 minutes to break through the crowd and be able to set a reasonable pace and even once in a while when the trail narrowed we got stuck behind other runners waiting for an opening. 

I'm not super pleased with my time, but I am happy.  In November we did a really rough conditions, extremely hilly 7.7 km race and I finished in 43:11.  This 8K, easy terrain race took me 43:43.  Yeah, slightly longer, but the difference in terrain should have meant a better time.  But given that I really haven't run in the last month it's pretty good.  I ran the 2nd half faster than the first, which is something I aim to do in races.  Once we broke out of the initial pack very few women passed me, though a fair amount of men did.  Actually, for the first 4-5 Km no women passed me, but I guess their stamina was better than mine in the second half.  Last February I did my first 8K race and it took me 49:54 to finish it ... so yeah, 6 minutes improvement is pretty good I guess.

My husband finished in 39:39 and he's feeling pretty disappointed.  His last race (the 7.7Km) he did in 37:10, so he expected better.  Last year 8K took him 42:40ish.  But I still think that's a rocking time and I can't wait until I can run it that fast.  It's kind of neat that a year later I'm now running the times he ran last year.  He has about 10" on me, all in the legs, so it makes me feel really good when I can run as fast as he has.

Our next race is a 10Km, fairly hilly route, on January 24th.  My goal for that is to do it in 54-55 minutes.  I'm giving myself a cushion because I recall some pretty big hills on that route.  I've got work to do in the next 3 weeks to get back to my faster pace and to get in better condition.

This last race really reminded me that I need to get back into regular training.  The actual run wasn't too hard, but at the end I was completely out of gas.  I was just a breath away from loosing my lunch after finishing the race.  The volunteer at the end was removing the tag off of my bib and I thought I'd lose it right there.  Not a good feeling!

It feels good to be back into training again, and eating cleaner.  My body likes me!  This race was exactly what I needed to kick the new year off just right.  Hopefully the event posts the results today so I can see how I did in comparison to the others.

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