Luck of the Irish

Yesterday, as a celebration of St Patrick's day, I partook in the last of my winter series races. I am not so sure that the term actually fit the bill. Yesterday it was more like a warm spring almost summer day race. When I got up in the morning, I didn't see any snow on the ground, but instead saw some lightning in the distance. Just before I was about to head out, a light rain started and created the most beautiful rainbow in the sky. Our "race bunny in practice" aka daughter admired her very first rainbow from the living room window.

I have to admit that after running the other four races in the series, the enthusiasm for this one was quite low. As a matter of fact, I was a little sad not to take advantage of this gorgeous weather and be heading out for a run on the trails. It was probably smarter this way though, as I hadn't run since Tuesday, when I tweaked my knee. I actually had no idea how this race would treat me.
I had made the decision this week to go into the this race with the mantra that I want to run for life and not just for today. I told myself that practicing to run my own race in the midst of a crowd, instead of letting the crowd push me to run faster than I should, will be a beneficial skill to have come marathon time.

So I started the race off in a training instead of a race pace. It turned out that this might have saved me from even more of an energy loss in this 10K race. I knew that the race course was supposed to have a hill in it, but I hadn't anticipated having to run it three times. After loop two I could feel that I should have brought something with me to boost my energy. I made sure to stop at the water stations whenever I could, but could feel chills running through my body at the end. It gave me a good excuse to walk just a little bit up the hill for the last time.

There are several points I took away from this race:
*There is nothing quite like being lapped by the front runner in the race (at least he was sweating buckets and didn't just make it seem like a piece of cake; and being able to watch his running form was also worth it)
*When you run several laps on the course, you get to cheer on the last person as well (While I was running I noticed a lady who was just being a trooper! She was overweight and red all over her face, but slowly kept going her pace and seemed so determined. I cheered her on whenever I saw her. When I passed her on my last long stretch to the finish line, I told her how awesome she was doing. She still had one more lap to go. She looked at me and said, "I might be slowly going my pace, but I am not a quitter." As we were about to leave the race and went back to our car, the organizers were already taking down the race course markings. Just as we come to our parking spot, I saw this woman heading for the finish line. She had continued! I gave her another cheer and was glad I had gotten to share a moment with her on the race course).
*When you cheer on people you know on the race course and shout "almost there" or "just one more lap", admit it, you are trying to make yourself feel better as well and are just glad to have a reason to say it out loud
*High school aged volunteers on the race course are clearly there for entertainment and to crack you up while running your heart out (my favorite one was the girl at the water station, who handed everybody a cup of water and with a sarcastic undertone that clearly told her opinion of "you are doing this to yourself, buddy" chirped "Happy St Patrick's day".)

Now I can proudly wear my new sweatshirt as a sign of having raced all five races for this series!