What a day! I am STOKED! I feel GREAT! My strategy today was to go out fast enough to not get caught up in the crowd, and then cool it and rock steady for the middle miles, and then pound it home hard for the last mile or two. This is a huge huge race with 3,000 or so I believe in the 10k(okay that's huge to me). Anyways I lined up toward the front, and went out pretty hard. There was gray shirt girl to my right and ahead of me. I was about twenty yards behind her or so through the first mile--6:36. Yikes. A little fast but I feel good and the pace does not feel strained. I tell myself to cool it there are still 5.2 miles to go. 2-mile split is 13:40. Okay I meant to cool it but not that much. I pick it up a notch, still on gray shirt's tail and I can see hot pink lady ahead of her. 3-mile split it twenty something. Good. Under 21 minutes and I want to stay sub-7. We hit the turn around, out of the wind now, so it feels hot all of the sudden. I still feel good. 4-mile split is 27:4?. Still at sub-7 pace. I can feel my body starting to work and wanting to get into some sort of groove but I don't want to slow down. I start repeating the mantra "don't get comfortable" to myself over and over again. "Relax, don't get comfortable." I say this to myself pretty much the rest of the race. Somewhere around here I move past gray shirt girl. 5-mile split is 34:17. I'm doing a little mental math while I'm running. Sub-44 is in the bag. Sub-43 is very possible. Breathing is hard but I don't feel terribly strained. Calves are burning a tiny bit. I like that 5 mile split, so I decide to PUSH. Only 1.2 miles just PUSH IT. I pick it up and just start running HARD. I pass pink shirt lady. She puts up a fight but I get past her. It's a ways away, but I can see the douglas street bridge, and I know when I turn that corner I'm home free so I push as hard as I can go without all-out sprinting. This part of the race, the last mile, hurt the most, I'm a little nauseated. As a tear around the corner someone tells me I am 14th woman. Better than I expected in this race after looking at last year's times. I start sprinting all out. As I tear down the home stretch I see the clock. 42:09, 42:10, 42:11--SERIOUSLY!? HOLY COW! I just look at the finish line and go. 42:19 is my guess for finish time--won't know the official results until they are posted in the Sunday paper tomorrow. I will find out then if I got an age group award--they only do the top 3 overall at this awards ceremony since this is the big riverfest and a lot is going on downtown. I'm very excited with my time--I did not see this coming! My two year old Vanessa ran in the tot trot. She was second in her heat. I was so proud of her--she knew exactly what to do and just ran straight to the finish line(40 meter dash). Those little two year olds racing is the cutest thing ever!
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