I did what I planned to do - I ran the race for *me*, what was comfortable for me, according to what my body was feeling, and for the pure enjoyment of running outside with thousands of other people on a beautiful day. I went out slow and kept it slow for the first 3-4 miles because I know what my body can and cannot do - and it cannot go out fast or I will bonk. Then when I reached mile 5 or so, I increased my pace and waited to see how my body responded. It always responded well. If for some reason I got a tiny bit winded or had to climb a hill, I would walk for about a minute or two to get my HR back down. I remember saying at each mile past mile 7 "I am still feeling great...time to pick up the pace a tiny bit." By mile 10 I knew that I only had a 5K left to run and that my body was still feeling great, so I picked up the pace considerably - ran at zone 4 until the end, and then an all out sprint to the finish line to make it in under 3 hrs.

Not a thing.

I thought I was going to pass out or puke after sprinting the last .25 mile, but I didn't. Instead, I wandered around trying to find my husband who was supposed to be at the finish line watching my incredibly inspiring sprint to the finish, but who left our RV late and missed me. Finally gave up and walked (limped) back to our RV and had to wait on him to finally figure-out that he'd missed me. He showed-up an hour later.


I did have some pretty severe PMS symptoms Friday and Saturday night, but God was looking after me as I, on a whim, picked up some tea from the company The Republic of Tea called "Get a Grip" at Central Market Friday night. It's formulated for PMS symptoms. I drank one cup and within an hour all the symptoms were gone. So I had another cup Sat am and another Sat pm before bed. Woke Sunday morning without any aches/pains/PMS, and ran the race. However, I did start my period during the race but luckily I did have a tampon on me. If this is TMI, sorry...this is my race report, and when you're a woman runner, things like this are HUGE.


I wish there had been more music and/or bands along the race course.