Believe to Achieve

I think my heartrate is still up.  Let me check.   Okay it has come down but it is still pounding. I think I was still dehydrated from my QUICK 21 miler on Saturday.   Um.... the GOOD NEWS--- 10 k PR for me at a tough course. Sasha's course tool puts the race at .08 miles longer than a real 10k due to difficulty.  The  WIND was ridiculous (headwind the first 1.5 miles. There is a reason why they put FOUR MODERN  WINDMILLS right here ).  After the first 1.5 miles it was MUGGY.  I was hot the entire time.  Kim was cold.  But I must have been hot flashing.  I warmed up with Melanie for 1.3 miles (8:20pace) then had time for a brief stretch and prerace anxiety about why in the heck do I run 10ks?  They totally STRESS me out.  I am not even in a race until the 6th mile.  Took a gu about 15 minutes before race start.  No caffeine. I don't take caffeine in any of my races.  But this gu was chocolate (a natural cliff gu).  It seemed to increase my heartrate too early in the race along with the GROSS first mile of HEADWIND AND STEEPNESS.  That first mile was a 6:57 and before the ascent at .25 miles I was at a 6:20 pace. That tells you how fun of a hill it was.     After that I just couldn't relax in the race at all. I poured water over me to cool myself off.   Humidity hit the towns again.  Last week was so nice without it.  Now today, race day it hit again.  It is currently muggy.    It seems just like the 4th of July 10k was.  Back to the race.  I just wanted to PR.  I was sucking wind with a soaring heartrate so it wasn't easy.  I could see Kim until the last 1/2 mile.  That was nice.  I tried to pass a girl and instead of quickly passing her I stayed beside her and then she decided to answer back but I had no answer.  Then another girl (the same girl that was with me the end of Freedom 10k) came by us.  She did some talking to the other girl and signing with her fingers.  I am not sure what she was doing and since they stayed together I thought maybe she was pacing her.  This made me kind of relax too much and "give up" without my own pacer and certainly no brain power to stay with them  Then with .4 miles to go a guy I had run with throughout the race came up from the side of me and motioned with his hands for me to follow him and chase the two girls.  Well, I felt he was my angel I needed until I tripped over a rope that some parade watchers had used to mark their spot for seating on the ground and then I had to step back and jump over it.  You see they had crossed (the three runners I have been talking about) on to the sidewalk and then I did further down but didn't see the ropes when I turned to the  sidewalk and then back on to the street there the ropes were!!!  I am in no shape to hurdle in my last moments of a 10k and with that shaking me up I lost the spunk to push harder and power pass them.  I was so close.  But really it didn't matter to me because when I saw the clock I was like "I am PRing, it doesn't matter if I try to beat these other two women".  I am so NOT competitive.  Just with myself.  I have this old nightmare going on in my head about when I was in track in high school.  I hated competing against my friends and I would hyperventilate any time we were in a race together.  So....over 20 years later I continue those anxieties.  Maybe I need therapy : D.  Time was 40:47.  Pace 6:33.   Almost exactly my pace as my half marathon (6:34) last week.  That is pretty funny.   I was sixth overall and 1st over forty.  I won 18 holes of Golf.  Troy is really getting all the goods lately.  I give him a lot of my shirts and now he gets my prizes too.  He can't complain. BTW I ran back to my car and turned too early (I don't know the area well) and added another couple miles on to my cool down.  I ran back to the river bottoms after running on 300 south for a while and came up through the back way to the golf course.  I was quite frustrated at myself as I left on this run not even 4 minutes after I finished the race.  I was thirsty and getting hungry and the WIND WAS FEROCIOUS!!  I even had to jump a fence/bridge to get to my car after running through the golf course.  Pretty comical.  There were some pretty areas however so it wasn't all that bad.  It was I intended for four more but ran 5.85 miles instead.  I should have just followed the course in reverse.  AP for 5.85 cooldwon miles= 8:16.  Total miles 13.37.    There was a shuttle back to the cars but that would have been too easy.  : D.