Hitting Double Digits and Other Random Things

The time comes in every person's marathon training when one has to start tackling the double digit distances. As first it seems intimidating, because let's be honest, 10 miles just sounds so far to go on foot. I mean, didn't people domesticate the horse and invent the car to avoid doing such a thing? It's at this point that you start to think of those 3 mile runs as "cute" and the adjective "only" precedes the phrase "have 5 miles to run".

This year my first double-digit run happened to take place during our local half marathon weekend. The running store I work at is the title sponsor of the Fleet Feet We Care Twin Cities Half Marathon Weekend. During the weekend you can choose from a 5K, a 10K, a half marathon or a combination of some of these. I have a half marathon scheduled for the following weekend so I was supposed to run 10 miles this weekend. But I wanted to take part in the well-loved local race weekend. The half marathon distance was a little too far and the 10K was a bit too short. So I decided to sign up for the 10K and add some additional miles.

Race morning came and once again I got out of bed while it was still dark. This was becoming a regular occurrence and I'm not thrilled about it. In any event, I headed to the race site to get in 2 miles before the race started. As someone who never does a warm up, it was kind of a nice change of pace to do a little running before the running (to my non-running friends - I realize this sounds odd, and I would agree).

Soon the race was ready to start and I took off. Faster than I had planned. Way faster than I had planned. But I felt pretty good, so I tried to calm down into a race pace that I could sustain but that was still faster than I had been running. This was a 'green' race so there were no paper cups or other things that cause trash. So during mile 4 when I decided to eat a gel, I didn't want to litter. My guilt caused me to come to a full stop, down the gel and wait until I was done so I could throw it in the trash. So there is one mile that is significantly slower than the others. All in all, I was happy with my race.

I love this picture because I actually look like I'm ahead of people.

See? Happy.

 I felt a bit of a familiar twinge in my hip that worried me so I headed to the physical therapy tent to get a massage. After the treatment, I limped off the table and headed out for a much more leisurely final 2 miles. The cool part of this was I got to see a lot of the half marathoners coming in. By the time I got back from my run I was starting to look for my friend Meta to come in. Meta was running her first half marathon and it was a big accomplishment for her. I was so excited for her and I wanted to be sure to see her finish. Once I saw her coming down the road, I went out to meet her and run her in. Before I knew it a bunch of people from her training program had come too and we all were able to run with her for the final part of her race. It was so awesome to see her accomplish her goal!

My favorite part of the morning - running Meta (in orange) in to finish her first half marathon.

So now that the race was over it was time to focus on the important things. Namely ice cream and trying to walk.

I convinced headache victim Jill of the healing properties of ice cream.

Another development from the weekend. I'm really trying to increase my water intake. What better way to do this than to go shopping? I bought myself this super cute water bottle hoping that the cheerful colors would cause me to want to carry it around and therefore drink more water.

The magic water bottle that will force me to drink more water.

So far it's worked. On a related note, I've gone to the bathroom today approximately 532 times.