I have wanted to run The Race For the Cure for a long time. There aren't very many "big" races in Texas on Saturdays, so I had to take advantage of my opportunity. My aunt is struggling with breast cancer, I thought it appropriate to run dedicate it to her. David and I arrived at the Alamo Dome well too early in order to beat the masses that would soon enough be there. We parked about a mile away and walked to the Dome. Upon arrival, we discovered there was not a bag drop. I had throw-away clothes on that I didn't care about, but David had an entire warm-up outfit, plus his racing flats that needed to stashed somewhere. A race with 30,000+ people and there wasn't a bag drop? I guess people were going to run with backpacks or something. Before the race there was so much pre-race excitement going on. All of those that survived breast cancer had on survivor shirts. There were so many women in pink and a few men. Surely, I thought this race would bring some faster runners out, but still, I have not seen them... We warmed up and people were still parking next to the Alamo Dome. I was kind of mad that the day before they a police man directed us to park a mile away. Oh well. We warmed up and dropped our bags with some volunteers that seemed OK with stashing our stuff. We made our way to our corral. The race start had cool music provided by a local DJ. The music just made me nervous and on edge before the gun went off. National anthem, prayer, and tribute were said and then we were off . 10k went 20 minutes before the 5k. Started running far too fast. I was excited and my nerves needed to settle. I don't time splits, so I can't tell you what they were. Some girl in a purple jacket tried to stay with me the first mile, I dropped her. There was no catching the lady in first, she was the real deal. Just paced myself off of odd men. I saw a man in neon shorts and he looked back at me and started SPRINTING full out! We were at what, mile 2? Caught him and gracefully ran past him. I guess he was all out of sprints. Probably made him feel bad being chicked, I don't know. Course was pretty darn flat and certified. There were times I felt like we were heading a little uphill, but not enough to notice. I passed the 5k at 21:00 minutes. I told myself I could try and relax a little and I did. Mile 4, we joined up with the 5k people. I was a little nervous about having to face a wall of people, but it really wasn't bad. Everyone was moving at a steady pace. I was able to just pass and pass people, it was motivating! Hit the 5 mile mark around 35 minutes and knew I actually could PR today!!! Cranked my music up (even louder, yes, it was REALLY loud) and jammed it out. During the last mile there was a very large dip we had to run down and back up. Ran down as fast as possible and went up pretty easily. Last part of the race went down a big road that kept going forever! I just ran my little booty as fast as possible, I wanted my PR dang it! Saw the balloon arch and crossed. I screamed out loud "YEAH" because I was happy. Saw my hubby and he got 2nd place as well. His time was 37:42! He's a fast one!! We cooled down, ate a gross yogurt and waited for the awards. During the race I decided that any hardware I received today would be going to my aunt. I got first in my AD (30-39). Happy about that because only first got hardware. It was just a little pink medal. Thought they could have done better with the prizes since there were 30,000 + people. Oh well, such a fun day! My last 10K PR was at Des News 2009. I don't run very many 10k's, but I still felt really good about my effort today. | 