Believe to Achieve

Ran the SLC Winter Series 10 K at the Saltair.  Never have run this series and it has been around for 40 years THIS YEAR!! LOL doing it my most out of shape since early 1995 is hilarious.  Ran a warm up of 1.88 miles out and back on the paved trail that the race is on.  It is basically flat and only one small curve so straight and no scenery except in the distance right along the highway.  It was windy and cold. But not dreadful.  To others the wind bugged them a lot.  It cooled me off from my extra layers.  I got there at 9:35 am (race starts at 10am).  Fiddled around for a bit texting my cousin in Massachusetts telling her how I better get it in gear to run Boston.  Didn't tell her until I got back that I was running a 10k. Used the Bathroom in the Saltair. This race is festive.  Music, food, fun, a plank contest (didn't have time for it had to go warm up).  At 9:44  I ran my warm up and got back with 30 seconds to spare (cut it way too close, I wanted to stretch) and the gun went off.  Warm up pace was 8:24 avg.  I was like "oh my they are about to start the race and I am on the course!"  so I picked it up the last 0.2.  Ran 24:17 out (timing mat)  And my overall time was 48:46.  So double the 24:17 that is 48:34.  So way back I was 12 seconds slower.  Mile four was my downfall.  Right before hitting the turnaround I was wanting to quit.  I didn't feel bad physically just mentally.  I am having a hard time of finding a reward with running (within my brain) so I just emotionally quit.  So as I turned I tried hard to not think of quitting just to quit when clearly I could run the last three miles.  I just ran 12 on the fly last saturday.  Yah it was windy but come on it is the home stretch.  So I kept playing the same song over and over to just get my brain to care a little.  This battle was until mile 4 then I was like okay really Julie?? two miles thats it.  Get to 4.2 miles and you just have two miles.  Mile splits:  7:39, 7:42, 7:52, 7:56, 7:51, 7:50 and 7:29 for last 0.26.  Not sure why my garmin had it long.  I wonder if they went off the second timing matt at the start a ways away.  That would make sense as it would shorten my 0.26 by .03 miles x 2 (out and back).  We don't even get the general medals for the race until we do the last race which is in two weeks. The 15 K.  This time I am going to get going and try to keep the pace at the same as the 10k.   So it is 9.3 miles (4.5 miles out and back).  I got first in my age bracket today!!! YaY!!  I was two minutes ahead of second place so I didn't need to run scared.  I didn't look back once after turn around.   I was first in the 5K two weeks ago as well.  I can do this.  Okay just for KICKS here is mileage for the last five weeks: Jan1:  4   Jan8: 11.2  Jan. 15:  22.6   Jan. 22nd:  9.4   Jan 29: 21.1   Feb5: 23.06  (current week with this race) OBVIOUSLY A LOT OF ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT!!!