I love the Easters. No joke, it's pretty much my favorite holiday even over Christmas. Without getting too religious here it's because, well, Jesus! I don't do the Easter Bunny because it's all about Jesus! I know I said I wasn't going to get too religious, but this is my blog, so ...
JESUS!
JESUS!
JESUS!
JESUS!
JESUS!
But, if I was going to give you some non-religious reasons of why Easter is the best holiday ... well ... for one, Easter candy is the best holiday candy out there. I'll take Easter Peeps, jelly beans and chocolate eggs over anything that Christmas or Halloween offers.
Secondly, Easter also doesn't run into the problems that Christmastime usually does, meaning there isn't something happening every night (ie-concert, work parties, parties in general and whatnot) and you usually don't run into the issue of meeting other people's expectations. I could write volumes about that, because my biggest issue with Christmas is the conflict that arises when others' (usually family) expectations for Christmas aren't met.
The only thing I don't like about Easter is the Easter Bunny, again, I could write volumes about this. It's the dumbest holiday mascots next to Santa and those Elves on a Shelf (I still don't understand them). Then again, I was terrified of most holiday mascots. I learned fairly early on that the Easter Bunny wasn't real when my parents realized I terrified I was of a giant bunny breaking into our house to hide our eggs and poop jelly beans for us to find.
Anyways, as the shirt I wore read ... Easter is all about Jesus.
Now to the race.
I came into the race with a couple goals. One, I wanted to finish faster than my last 10K (which was 01:27:15 at the Lucky 10K three weeks ago) and not die. Two solid goals.
I had a few weeks of training behind me PLUS it was the same course as the Lucky 10K, so I knew where I needed to push, hold back and cruise. It's not a tough course. It's just not downhill, which I love and prefer (which is on me). The course starts at Gardner Village in West Jordan and is a simple northward out and back (the fall races start at the same place, but go southward).
I did have a couple of issues going into the race that I knew I needed to counter if I was going to improve my time. Well, for one, I didn't have a watch. A few weeks ago I lost my Garmin so I have been running naked (don't worry Mom that's a term for running without a watch) for a while, I don't mind running without one, but I'm a bit addicted to getting my steps in so thinking of wasting all those steps (especially on a race day) makes me itch.
Plus, I was a bit worried how I was going to time my run/walk sets. Thankfully that wasn't much of an issue since I got the Jeff Galloway app and I didn't need to attach a watch to it. I won't lie, I got a tad emotional listening to Jeff's voice encourage me on my run and to remind me to fuel. He really made a difference in my approach to running, especially beyond training. But, that's a post for another day.
With those issues ... sorta ... figured out (I know my watch is somewhere in my house), I felt pretty good going into the race. Race morning was pretty cold (just around freezing) but once we got going around 8am not only did my legs warm and hands warm up, but so did everything else. And, that was where I had most of my issues during the race. That being ... allergies.
As soon as the sun came out the allergens just pounced. It was pretty bad. I sneezed a few times, which wasn't horrible. However, it was the constant throat clearing and drainage that killed me. When I say it was constant, I mean it was constant.
I tried to just forget about it by focusing on my sets, Jeff's occasional tips and my Jesus music playlist. I did pretty good sticking with my sets, I did run through a couple of walk sets earlier into the run, both intentionally and unintentionally. And, then at the tail end of the race I walked through a couple of runs portions ... unintentionally. I blame the ADHD for a lot of that, because I'll get lost in my thoughts, music or silent judgement of the runner ahead of me.
However, I killed it.
No, not the runner ahead of me.
The race.
I finished ... according of my Galloway app ... in 01:15:04! That's a 12 minute improvement, on a flat course!
Now I have to note that comment above about it being according to my Galloway app. There's a reason for that. Long story short ... I accidentally signed up for the half marathon and then switched to the 10K on race morning. There was an issue with the bib after the half started (at 7am) and blah, blah, blah, blah ... it registered me as running the 10K in 0:00:17. Yes, 17 seconds.
When I checked my time after the race the results said I won the race. Like all of them. And, not to mention, broke the sound barrier (eat your heart out Usain Bolt).
Naturally, I had to take a screenshot of my "accomplish" because I've never won a race, an age division, but never a race. And, come to think of it, when I won my age division I am pretty sure I was the only person, my age, in that division. But, hey, you're only racing whoever shows up, right?
Besides the stupid issue with allergies, I felt pretty good. The legs held up throughout the weekend and I am feeling pretty strong. I don't want to heighten my expectations TOO much, but I feel like a combination of my focus on strength training, personal training and the chiropractor have helped me a lot. The miles will always be there, but it's those little things that can, and will, make a big difference.
My next race is in a couple of weeks here in South Jordan, it's the SoJo Earth Day 10K, and then the week afterwards is the Salt Lake City Half Marathon. That will be the first of three half marathons in three weeks (SLC, Provo City and Vigor BC), which was probably stupid of me, but ... hey ... I'm really good at doing stupid.
Soooo ...
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