Anyway, Tour de Torture-- 3 runs, 1 weekend.
The first run is a Friday at 6:00 p.m. It's four miles through my neighborhood. Now I know these hills, and I'm not overly pleased. Still, I think I may be able to use some strategy based on knowledge of the course. Yeah, so I go out too fast. I'm cocky, I'm ready to go. I run up the horrible street with the horrible hills too fast. I can usually maintain about a 9 minute pace if I'm pushing it on this street- so I go for about an 8 minute pace. Predictably, I'm not just wheezing, I almost sound like I'm crying. So I chat with the older, wiser runners who pass me and just try to get moving again. I really don't like night runs. Too many chances to ruin yourself during the day! I finished somewhere around 34 minutes and then went home to say bye to Ted who was leaving for 3 days... as in leaving me alone in charge of 3 kids... with two races to go.
Saturday morning is a 5k. With the exception of having my babysitter show up at 7:59 for a race starting at 8:00, it went well. (They started a bit late, but I was hustling up to the start strapping on my race belt as the horn blew!) I forgot my Garmin, which may have helped. Same basic route, but cut out some of the hills. I don't know if it was because it was morning so I hadn't sabotaged myself yet or because I didn't have the Garmin pressure, but I felt better. The clock said 26:xx but someone told me he thought the course was long. Again, Garminless, so no clue.
Saturday afternoon was a 1 mile run. Never done a 1 mile run. Not worth the effort in my opinion. You go out blazing, can barely breathe, never get time to settle down, and then it's over and you have the whole "do I really have to take another shower?" thing going through your head. The clock said 8 something, but my Garmin said 7:5x. Whatever. The whole Tour de Torture concept was getting a bit, shall we say, tortorous...
It took awhile for them to tally the results. I played with my phone.
Best part of all?!
Check it out:
Harry always wants to know if I "won" my race. He totally doesn't get the concept of everyone winning for finishing the distance. Finally, I was able to announce that "YES! I WON." My mom was in town watching the kids for me, so it was fun to show off my medal.
I should add that this was a perfect storm- I ran reasonably fast, but tons of the usual runners who could run circles around me weren't at all the races due to a bike race on Saturday morning. Still...
Oh, and Harry promptly knocked the head off the running girl, but I was able to wedge it back on. Typical.
