A PR (by almost a minute!?) I got a mug for getting in the top five of my age group, I really needed one too. I'm really not happy with this race though - I did several stupid things today. I started the morning eating so much oatmeal. It was so good with strawberries and bananas in it but I ate until it hurt...such a bad idea. I also didn't really know what to wear. The morning started out being in the 40's and slightly rainy. By 10AM when the race started the weather was in the 50's and not rainy. I ended up wearing shorts with a long sleeve black under armour type top. I was.sweating.so.much. Me in the upper left (number 457). I do look less in pain then the rest of the people I'm running near :-D
I had a really good warm-up, usually I'm too timid. I lined up fairly close to the start, aparently close enough. A guy wearing JEANS stepped in front of me. I should have moved up... Worried that I lost too much time weaving through runners wearing jeans I ran a really fast first mile...at 7:30 (which includes the 15 seconds I spent standing in place after the gun went off...). The second mile was a really a bad one. Pain hadn't set in yet but I doubted myself and thought very negatively the entire mile which ended up being 7:49. The third mile I was wheezing and side stitching and complaining. I definitely gave up, I even told myself I gave up! The third.1 mile was 8:56, and several people in my age group whizzed by me at the last few yards.
My splits don't add up to my time and I was even quite diligent with my watch this time. Maybe they didn't start my time until I crossed the start line? After the race..my neck glands hurt and I couldn't breathe in all the way without coughing. I did some cool down stuff, ate some food, and headed home.
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