I ♥ PRs

This is my race report for the Striders 10k.  As I am sure you can tell from the title of this post, it was a VERY good race for me :)

Anyhow, to start with, I felt like crap the night before.  I had a headache the entire day and my normal ways of trying to get rid of it weren't working.  It made it a little better, but it never disappeared completely.  I was also exhausted beyond belief.  I was thinking I was getting sick, and I also knew what lie in store for me the next morning with a brutal race course, so to be honest, I didn't really want to go.

But, for those that know me, I would have to be on a death bed to miss a race.  I am also cheap and I paid for this race as part of the series.  I also love me some race bling, so I knew that if I missed any of the 5 races in this series, no finishers medal.  So all of those factors got my butt out of bed and to the race.  I was excited to see Ken come along as well.

The start temp at the race was around 20.  I wasn't thrilled, but what do you expect for a winter race in Northern Utah?  I saw many of my friends there and was excited to race.  I decided that this was a "just survive" it race, and more of a good training run as this is a very difficult course with tons of hills.  It starts of with a decent, but doable hill then heads down hill for the first two miles.  You hit some rollers up until the half way point but nothing terrible.  As I was doing this course and feeling really good, I was wondering what all the huff was about when others had told me how brutal this course was.  Well, it didn't take me long to figure that out!  Just after the half way point, another hill started and it seriously lasted till the end.  It was gradual in parts, but otherwise it was this straight hill the final few miles to the finish.  It was awful.  I thought I might puke at a few times, but I just reminded myself to take deep breaths, look up, and keep going.  Even though it was hard, I was feeling pretty good, considering.  I then noticed on the toughest part of the hill I was passing guys in my tri group!  Now if THAT doesn't get you excited, I don't know what does!  I kept going and plugging a long and was very happy to finally see the finish where I just went for it.

I crossed the finish line with no idea how I did.  I forgot to hit STOP on my watch, and didn't pay attention to the finish time on the clock because that isn't my chip time, so who cares, right?  Some one there said that they had a feature that if you used the bar code scanner on your phone and scanned your bib, it would give you your chip's finish time.  I scanned it and could not believe what it said!  I had finished this, my second 10k in 1:00:04.  This was an average pace of 9:42/mile, and it had been 2/3 hills!  This was a new PR for me as my previous PR was a 1:01:32 at the Resolution Run just 6 weeks prior, and that had been a FLAT course!

Once again, I have found that I am stupid to sometimes have such low expectations for myself.  I have done this countless times now where I discredit myself, and tell myself I am just "going to finish" and make excuses for why it won't be a great race.  Dang it, Katie!  Just stop already!  I am so excited to see this progress!  I love that I am running better than I have ever done, and doing so consistently!  This PR was just 6 weeks old under easier conditions, and I saw a huge improvement, all things considered, in a short amount of time!  So exciting!

One of the things that I love about my tri training is that I am running less but running better than I ever has.  There is such a power and benefit in the cross training it provides and the benefits that cross over into results in all three sports.  I am so excited to have my first tri of the year and see how all this adds up together!  Maybe a podium this season?  Can't wait to see!

I have a few weeks off from racing now.  I do have a snow-shoeing 5k next Saturday, but that is a just for fun race, and not even really a race.  I have 3 weeks until the 10 miler in the Striders series, and I hear that is equally brutal as the others have been.  My mindset is simple...♪ just keep training, just keep training, just keep training, training, training ♪