Week in Review

92.6 Miles
5 Doubles
2 Races - 2nd Place at NC USATF 10k Champs in 35:55 (Unofficial - 5:40, 5:49, 5:50, 5:40, 5:59, 5:53, 1:08), $300, and 1st Place at On a Mission 5k in 19:00, $100
15.5 mile long run
2 dance classes
20 boxes packed

This week was certainly jam packed with lots of activity. I managed to fit in a full work schedule in the office, several dance lessons in Matthews, 5 doubles, a mid-week long run, a drive to and from Raleigh and two races all in just 7 days!  When I initially planned this week out, I remember thinking that I would break mentally from the stress of fitting it all in.  Then, in the middle of it, I realized that you find ways to buy more time to fit everything in.  Without tapering, I drove to Raleigh on Friday night with the plan to run the NC 10k Champs as part of the Capital City Classic 10k. Garrett's cousins Emily and Matt were my gracious hosts yet again for my night before the race.  I arrived around 9:40PM after an awful drive through the construction near Concord Mills.  Emily and I caught up on the standard family topics before calling it a night.  They had NC State graduation to attend while I had a race.

At the 10k, I enjoyed warming up and toeing the line with Heather Magill, my friend from the other end of the state.  For the race, I went out entirely too fast, ahead of even 3x Olympic Trials Qualifier, now masters runner, John Hinton.  I was the first lady at this point, but this luxury didn't last long.  I didn't realize that Kerri Lyons, who had beaten me by 45 seconds at my craptastic rust buster NC 4 Mile Champs, had also toed the line.  Around 2.5 miles, Laura Swann cheered for me quite loudly, but then, quietly informed me that a girl was fifteen meters behind me.  At first I thought she said fifty meters, but then I realized if the girl was that far back, she wouldn't have spoken so quietly.  By 3 miles, the girl, Kerri, was running right next to me.  I fought with her up the hills until about 4.5 miles, when we turned left to continue yet another ascent, when I finally gave up.  I say gave up because that's exactly what I did.  My legs were tired and I used the excuse of "well, I didn't taper for this race, so it makes sense for her to beat me." How ridiculous!  I don't like making excuses to lose while I'm in a race because it leaves no room for motivation to win.  Kerri wasn't even that far ahead of me, so I could have willed myself to push a little harder, but didn't.  You can tell from my splits above that I really gave up in that 6th mile because it wasn't an amazing split.  The best part about this race was that I still managed to dip right under 36:00 despite losing the appetite for victory.  In the end, I came away with several desserts from the Carolina Bakery, which brought in some of the best post-race snacks I've ever had in my life, such as cupcakes, cookies, sweet potato biscuits, chocolate cheesecake bites, lemon pie bites, and chocolate croissants.

After an uneventful 2.5 hour drive back to Charlotte, I took a nap, ate some eggs, drank some more water, took a small detour with Matt and his parents to pick up a Craigslist bookshelf in Matt's van (the girl took a picture of his van to post on facebook as quite possibly the most creepy vehicle a Craigslist customer has ever appeared in before--don't worry I warned this girl of said van before we came so she didn't bail out).  Sooner than I would have liked, it was time to drive to Concord with John for the On a Mission 5k.  It felt like a high school cross country meet because of the laid back attitude, the hand timed system, and the note cards for our places.  However, it was totally worth the drive because the race director was so enthusiastic and I got to meet Sommer and Tim Baucom, who I've always seen in the CRC Newsletter results but never have met in person. At 8:05PM, we took off for the prize of a visa gift card.  My race pace stayed between 5:50-6:05 and I liked it just at that pace.  John took home the victory on the men's side and we both walked away with handcrafted wooden award plaques and a visa gift card to help assist us in the finances necessary for our move in just a couple of days.

In the end, this week was definitely a good one.  I can only aspire to be like Alana Hadley and Meagan Nedlo, who are able to consistently hit mileage around 90 miles without any struggle whatsoever!