That was ROUGH. I am absolutely thrilled with my time though! I am glad I took yesterday off, my ankle was doing great today. It was thirty or so degrees outsided but no wind today. I felt my ankle a little bit when I started jogging around to warm up, but it warmed up very quickly and did not bother me during the race. There were no splits called so I am not sure of my pace the entire race. I know the first mile I felt like I took off a bit too fast. By the time we started the second mile both my calves began to really bother me. They were incredibly tight and aching, and stayed that way the entire race. There were many times when I felt like I really should be going a little faster, but my tight calves wouldn't let me. I concentrated hard on leg turnover and trying to relax my shoulders and arms. I passed the lady ahead of me in the third mile, but coming into the fourth mile some other girl passed me. I surged, passed her, but she surged and came past me again. I started running pretty hard but I could not catch her. At this point I entered the puke zone, and stayed there for the rest of the race. I felt like I was crawling and not running very fast, but figured since I had to throw up I was running as hard as I really could. The last mile was very hard. I felt like throwing up and I was quite miserable. I finally heard the cheers, came round the bend, and saw 29:14 on the clock and sprinted as hard as I could(which wasn't much faster than I was already going). I walked off the nausea within 5 minutes of finishing. This is definitely the worst I have felt during a race, which I believe is because this is the hardest I have pushed myself. My goal was under 30 minutes so I am very happy with my time!
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