10K

Last year my friend Sarah and I ran the Chattahoochee Road Runner's Club 10K. We decided to try and do this one again in '09. This makes the 3rd we have run together and hope to run more.

This one last year was a lot of fun but the miles seemed.to. drag. by. We were a lot slower(well she had some intestinal issues that slowed her down....I just had some short legs or something ). I just wanted to beat my time from before (65 minutes...it was her first one) and I did with 63:03 minutes. That year we were the last to start the race because of being in the bathroom when they said "GO!" so who knows how many seconds we could have taken off if we had drained our bladders beforehand!!

So this year we were better prepared! I still hated to get up that early but of course we were glad we did once we got there. Sarah did not eat 2 packs of oatmeal and toast which made her bowels very happy. I still had short legs so that leg-stretching machine is going back. We also went to the bathroom before we got to the registration area which meant no standing in the horrendous-ly long line for the porta-stinky-potties. We picked up our numbers at the registration table, pinned them on, ohh-ed and ahhh-ed at the blue shirts we would get at the end and then did a little warm-up jog to the starting line. We stretched and then people-watched. There were some serious runners there for sure!!

One benefit of starting dead last is you get to pass all the slower runners. It was exhillerating in that aspect and we really relt like we were fast! ha! This time we started with everyone else and got passed by all the fast-er runners!! We felt a little trampled:) But we did catch up with some of those "fast-er" runners....endurance wins the race everytime! ha!

At the first mile we were very excited that it was only 9:30. Sarah turned to me and said "yeah! let's shoot to make the next one in under 9 minutes!". My reply, "uhhhh.....we still have 5 more to go!". We did average between 9 and 9 1/2 minute miles and both finished in under 1 hour. If they were handing out congenality awards we would get them for sure with all the hi-5's we were giving out to the police men, race volunteers, water people and on-looker-cheer-people that were along the course.

Sarah could have run a lot faster if she wanted but she was being nice and waiting on me! I think I like it better when her bowels are acting up! hardy har har! Just teasing Sarah!! I believe I did so well because Sarah was running 4 seconds in front of me. It was the push i needed to keep up my pace! One great aspect of this race is the last 3/4 mile is downhill!! Sarah did leave me behind towards the end.

On the way home we had fun trying to figure out our pace for each mile. That isn't as easy as it sounds....well maybe it is for some but we kept trying and coming up with numbers that we thought were right and then shaking our heads. I thought we should call up my mother and ask her....hardy har har! I can see the wince(is that the right word??) on her face as she is reading this!

I would love to run a 1/2 marathon this year....but it was hard enough fitting in time to run in preparation for this 10K! How would I do more??!!?? I love to have goals to work for so I just might....you know what would make me do it?? Go ahead and register!

maybe I will......