Last Saturday morning, since I was in the Dallas/Fort Worth area and had time on my hands, I decided that instead of a long training run on the hotel treadmill, I'd run at a local race.
I was still exhausted from the Big Show the day before, but since the race didn't start until 8:30am, I could sleep later than I sleep on Saturday mornings anyway.
I got up and left the hotel in downtown Dallas and found the park in Arlington where the race was held. It was already humid and not cool. When the race started at close to 9am it was officially 82 degrees and 82% humidity. That makes for painful conditions.
I enjoyed the first half of the race a lot. The course was on the bike/running trails around Arlington and easy to follow. It was just so hot! After the turn around, I struggled. As I ran through mile 7, I was kicking myself for eating so little on Friday. Fueling up for a 10.486 mile race means eating more than 1/2 of a egg/spinach wrap for breakfast, 1/2 of a 1/2 of a ham sandwhich and a couple of pieces of pizza for dinner. Worse, I only drank probably the equivalent of one glass of water all day. OUCH! Needlesstosay, I was not fueled or hydrated to race.
In the end, I finished slower than I had wanted, but I was proud of getting through the race. I really felt like it was a good simulation of the mid 10 miles of the marathon.
After it was all over, my time was 1:55:30 for 10.6 miles unofficially. There wasn't a chip time, so I'm not sure exactly how they get true times.
I placed 3rd in my age group.
As you can see, getting the medal was a great pick me up!
And another thing I'm really proud of is that I have learned to keep moving throughout the day. I used to race and crash. Now I race, shower and keep going!
And lastly, the Abilene Marathon is 31 days away!
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