Race Day! This footrace is the oldest running race in the state of Washington, and is 95% trail. It begins on Bellingham Bay, goes up into the forest, and travels along Chuckanut Drive to Larabee Park, also on the Bay. Our group ran the race, then ran easy miles back to the beginning. Start time was 9am, which was really wierd, because I didn't really know what to eat for such a late start. I was up at 5:00am, to watch Tour De France for a bit. What an exciting day! They were riding through the Pyranees, and it was absolutely beautiful! I love watching it. Anyway, I had coffee, then made a bagel and ate like two bites. Met my group at the race start at 8:15, had a Gu, and did our warm up. Because the trail funnels onto a narrow trail about 1/2 mile in, they limit it to 1000 people. And it actually wasn't bad. There was a brief bottleneck for maybe 2 seconds, then it was back to running. My Garmin wasn't showing me my pace! I kept hitting the bezel, trying to get to a different training screen, but it just wasn't happening. So, I didn't really know my pace until mile 1, when I got a split. It was 7:13! Way, way too fast. My plan was 8:30-8:45 for the first mile or so. So I slowed down. Next splits were 8:09, 9:06, 8:27, 8:34, 9:09 and 7:34 (nice downhill finish). The 9s are big hills. I walked the first one; its really steep and kind of long, and I needed to be able to run at the top. I did really well just reminding myself of what I had to do to make my goal for this race, which was to get between 58:00 and 59:00, and have a strong finish! A friend (in my age group) passed me at about 5, and it was soooo hard not to try and catch her. But I didn't! I held back and did my own thing. I saw about a million people I knew, in the race, watching, passing out water, etc. It was actually pretty hot (mid 70s). My doctor was trying to catch me at the end, and he kept shouting at me from behind "Can I borrow your inhaler". So goofy, we just talked about my medications mishaps yesterday, and agreed that I shouldn't even carry the darned thing. It was too funny. I sprinted the finish, remembered to stop my watch, and my son and his friend were there. The finish is at a beautiful park, with music, food, etc. Our group hung around for about 30 minutes, then headed back down the trail. I felt great, and expected to have a great, easy jog back to Fairhaven, but I was SO TIRED! I've never raced hard before, then run 7 more miles. It was a challenge. My average mile on the way back was about 10 minutes. Happy Day, successful race. Finish time was 58:02, pretty much what I wanted. And, if I compare this to my previous 10K pace, its quite an improvement too.
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