Bryn's 10K in the rain, not in the cold, but in the RAIN

We Did it!  I Did it! (I'm the one in the  green shirt)

The "Mother's Day" 10K in Provo, UT

put on by the Utah Running Club on Saturday, May 2, 2009!

I did it in 1:15:59, (12:19 miles) in the rain with just a few runners and those are the highlights if you don't want to read the details!

It's nothing compared to the many miles that others have run, I know.

But it was a goal of mine for 13 weeks and I accomplished it.

Actually I might be more proud of myself for sticking with the training, only missing two training sessions, than for the 10k itself.

It was the second 10K race that I have run and since I ran it slower than the first, my time is not the exciting part.  I ran it in 1:15:59, which is under the goal of 1:20 that I set for myself, and told myself that I would be happy about.  Notice myself struggling with obeying myself.

I had set the goal of 1:20, 13 min. miles, after doing some calculations on the RW website.  But that seemed awfully slow and so I was glad when I got on the plane to Utah and was reading in a RW magazine and saw an article that had a different formula, that said an 11:30 minute mile pace would be a good target for me for a 10K.  So, I decided if I felt like it I would go for it.

Another thing I realized while sitting on the plane, was that I had left my running bra at home in the dryer.  Oh silly, silly me!  Why I thought I would think to grab it out of the dryer along with my pajamas, as I was dashing out the door goes to show I haven't learned how my brain works or doesn't!  It's annoying because, first of all, I had only worn it maybe once since it had been washed, so it didn't absolutely have to be washed that morning.  Second of all after it went through the wash, I thought about putting it in a plastic bag and letting it finish drying in UT.  I usually let it air dry anyways.  But no, I had procrastinated packing my bag till the last possible minute and raced out the door with running bra and pajamas still in the dryer!  I was the second to the last person on the plane to give you a feel for how close I cut it.  Not so smart!  Maybe, maybe, just maybe, now I've learned my lesson and will get packed earlier!!!!!  Hopefully I won't have to actually miss a flight before the lesson sinks in my thick skull.

Luckily, my sister-in-law, Wendy asked after she picked me up at the airport, "Do you have anything you want to do?"  I said well as a matter of fact, we don't have to do it right now, but sometime in the next few days I need to get a running bra.  Since she wanted to kill some time while her kids did the dishes at home, we headed to the nearest running shoe store she could think of.  It was a specialty shoe store with Birkenstocks? and other brand name shoes and bars on the windows and doors.  Made you wonder.  It had some running gear, but no bras.  The next idea was Big 5.  They had a small selection from which I quickly deduced nothing would work.  First of all I don't think their largest size would have fit and second of all, even if it did, I don't think it would have mattered.  Which is the point behind a running bra!  It needs to make a difference!  You know what I'm saying???  I don't think my sister-in-law did.  She looked at me like I was kind of nuts.  "You're not even go to try one of these on?", she was thinking.

Right next to running shoes, is the fit of the bra for me.  It just really needs to work or running won't!  So luckily a sales associate at Big 5, after admitting they had a slim selection of running bras at the time (I'm glad they conceded this point), pointed us to a Specialty Running Shoe Store, called Wasatch Running?  They had quite a selection.  And for some reason it seemed like I had to try on everyone, before I finally found one that fit and worked!  I even tried on the Oprah bra, didn't know before hand there was one!  That thing locks you down but gave me a weird shape.  Maybe I didn't know how to wear it.  Anyways I was very relieved to finally find one that would work!!!  And so was my sister-in-law!

Thursday and Friday I went to BYU Women's Conference and it was wonderful!  Absolutely wonderful!  Weather was very nice!  Tiny bit of sprinkling but nothing much really.  Rain was in the forecast for Saturday but really when do the weathermen get it right?

They did this time!!  Got up Saturday morning to RAIN, RAIN and RAIN!!!!  Maybe it would get it out of it's system?? I hoped!!  We got to the race place plenty early to warm up but we sat in the cars for a while, waiting for the race organizers to show up.  Wondered if it was going to be cancelled?  Nope, they showed up!  We huddled under an awning as we checked in and got our numbers!  There were 9 in our group! 

In the picture, from left to right-

There was Sterling-my husband's brother,

Karin, Sterling's wife,

Janelle, my niece,

Mitchel, Janelle's brother and my nephew,

Mitchel's roommate/friend,

DaLynn, my daughter,

me,

Ariel, DaLynn's roommate,

& Ariel's guy friend.

We pretty much dominated this 10K with this many people.  Seriously!  I'm not bragging I'm just saying there were so few runners!  

I knew it wasn't a large group but I didn't realize quite how small at first, because as we started we had the 1 milers and the 5 K runners starting too!  A total of around 20-25 people.  As the 1 milers and 5 K people turned around, I realized there were only 3 other people running the 10K besides those in our group!  One was a guy who finished first! One was a gal who finished last.  For the longest time I thought I was going to be last and I wondered if maybe I could be first and last in my age group?  But after the half-way point I was able to pass her by!  And then one other lady in the middle somewhere.

Gratefully, I had brought a windbreaker type jacket and my contacts!  They both came in real handy.  Running in glasses would not have been so fun in the rain.

I wore my hood up for the first 10 minutes or so but got hot, so I took it off.

The course was beautiful.  It was along the Provo River and it was running swift and high with all the rain!!!  Luckily it wasn't too cold.  That would have multiplied the misery factor exponentially.  As it was the wet was not too big of a deal.  Temperature was nice.  Your clothes just felt heavy with all the water they had absorbed.

I had warmed up a little.  Not as much as I would have liked.  So my legs were tight for quite awhile.  Right side loosened up at mile 2.  Left side finally at mile 4.

At the turn around point I felt pretty good so I tried to kick it up a notch a little.  And then of course I noticed the slope of the course gradually ascending, funny how I hadn't noticed the descending on the first half!

I was pretty sure I was averaging under 13 minute miles but my time was getting awfully close to 1:20 so I was confused and a little frustrated.  Around the corner, with under a mile to go, came my daughter and her roommate Ariel.  They had finished the race but had come back to run in with me.  It was a welcome distraction and a sweet gesture!

As we neared the finish line and I saw my time according to the race clock which was 1:15, it finally dawned on me the time on my Garmin included some of my warm-up time!  Duhh!!!  I was glad I was going to reach the goal of under 1:20!

DaLynn had reached her goal of doing it under 60 minutes!  I was very proud of her!  Mitchel was second place overall, even though he added about 4 minutes to his time because he got lost on the course.  No fun!  I wasn't sure which way to go at one point during the race but then I saw him coming along and that really helped!

And so that was my 10K!  My achilles bothered me some during the race, not too bad, and then some more afterwards.  I had physical therapy on Monday and have more tomorrow.  I hope it takes care of it!  The physical therapist seemed surprised when I told her about the 10K.  I guess I hadn't told her before hand, I thought I had.  I asked her about what kind of training I should do now.  I told her I want to do a marathon next summer.  She surprised me by saying that she has never run a marathon.  She looks like she has!  That's a dumb comment I know!

She said well let's just get you well now.  I've been wondering about that ever since.  I went to this PT office because I thought they were all into running and keeping you running.  If I didn't want to run and do a marathon I wouldn't be doing PT.  I could hobble around doing normal stuff.  It's the exercise that gets hindered with the achilles issue. hmmm...

So, so far this week, I've taken it off.  Feeling kind of aimless.  Trying to get back into the groove of home.  But my husband's out of town and that makes it hard too.  What's my next goal, my next training plan?  Need to lock in soon!