Race Day! So exciting. My friend Erin and I had a completely disasterous afternoon yesterday traveling to the race. It was a drive of a few hours that turned into an absolute nightmare of traffic, missed exits, you get the picture. We arrived in Tacoma around 6:00, too late to pick up our packets in the evening, so we set our alarms for 5:00am to get on the first shuttle so we could pick stuff up in the morning. Hotel was very comfortable, but couldn't really take advantage, since I don't sleep so well under usual conditions anyway, and this particular pre race had me a little amped up. Our shuttle bus driver got lost! We were supposed to start at a small airplane hangar across the river from Tacoma, in Gig Harbor. He took two wrong turns but some woman on the bus told him where to go and we finally made it. The woman who knew the way looked to about in my age division, so I was kind of scoping her out. I thought she looked very strong and like a good runner. We got off of the bus, picked up our packets, found SNO!, chatted awhile, then realized that it was freezing cold! For me anyway. Sno was happy because it was foggy, and I was happy for her while freezing my little butt off. Funny, because last week was such a record breaking heat wave, I was prepared to run in a sports bra and the lightest possible shorts I could find, and here I was on race day wishing I'd thrown in a sweatshirt. The air was also somewhat dense, not good for my asthma condition. I just stayed positive about the air quality and chanted soothing mantras to myself. Warm up felt great, because I needed warming up, and we finished about 10 minutes before start time. Perfect. I had sworn to go 9 minute miles the first few. Did I do that? Nope. But my effort was very easy for the first four, and the first two had a lot of downhill in them. So the first splits were 8:00ish. Anyway, things felt great. My IT band, while looking horribly bruised, was not tight, and I could only feel impact discomfort from the bruising. The first hill was at (?) about mile 4, and it was much much longer than I expected. I slowed and went steady, stopped just after the crest and had water at the station, walking through so that I could actually get the water. We have a strange phenomenon here where the marine air, which creates the freezy fog, burns off and abruptly changes the weather to HOT, so I was expecting that and wanted to stay especially hydrated. I felt great after the hill. It was a fairly hilly course, lots of smaller ups and downs and one more somewhat longer hill. There was a side trip into Cheney Stadium for a loop around the interior of the stadium, and the course workers were not pointing people in the right direction. People were sort of bottling up, saying "where do we go?", and finally we got some direction! By mile 10, the air got to me, and I decided to walk 12 breathes, while relaxing the airways. This worked, and I did it three times between 10 and 11.5. Then there was a lot of downhill in the last mile and a half, and I mean some big, haul on down downhills. My last two splits (haven't seen them yet) will be fast, which was one of my goals. I came to the top of a final hill, saw a longish downhill stretch to the finish, ran down, and SPRINTED hard to the finish (200m sprint)? That sprint made people whoop for me which I really liked. I was in some oxygen debt, and was concerned that it would be like Seattle's race, where I couldn't walk straight once I finished running. But that did not happen! I could walk perfectly well. A waited a short while for Erin, then for Sno! Erin and I hung around for awards, and unbelievably, I got a first place plaque for my division! I was beyond surprised and excited. Still am. | 