Bastille Day 8K

I had a typical day.  I chased kids, I ran errands, I ate junk food.  But, at the end of that "typical day" I was set to run an 8K.  The weather was perfect, which was good.  Standing in line waiting for the start I noticed how dull and achy my legs were ... which was not good.

I ran this race with my friend, Gina, and sister, Jean. Although I didnt see Gina after the start, since she runs like her pants are on fire and I run like a one-legged-turtle. Together, my sister and I did not do a great job of tracking mile times (because we got a wee bit confused on the course), and my Runkeeper GPS signal wouldnt work (as most of the run was on trails in the trees).  But, I know the first mile was about 11:15 and the second one was about 10:15.  This is where I think the trouble set in.  I went from a slow, warm-up mile to running one of the fastest miles I currently can do.  When I'm really trying to pick up the pace on the treadmill I still rarely run a mile in under 10 ... so 10:15 was much to fast for mile 2 out of 5.  I think I took what little juice I had and squeezed it out right there, leaving almost nothing for miles 3, 4, and 5.  Whoops.

It was actually a pretty tough race.  My legs were tired the whole way.  I was pretty sweaty.  And by mile 4 I was ready for it to be over ;)  My sister suggested that we speed it up to the finish.  I simply explained to her that I was going as speedy as I possibly could at that time.  Honestly, I'm lucky I was still running by the time I got to the finish line.  I'm pretty lucky it was an 8K and not a 10K because I definitely didnt have much left. It was all ok though, because (as promised) I was met by a cupcake at the finish.  In fact, I took two.

After the race there was a pretty big post-race "block party". There was food, beer & sangria. There was also a band, playing some pop hits, and some crazy people dancing. Little old ladies in red dresses, kids, and older couple doing some sort of salsa dancing and a lady dancing around by herself shaking her stuff all over the place. I have no clue where these people came from, as they clearly did not run the race, but it was some very good people watching. On top of all that, there was a very large man in a sequined vest juggling fire and swords. An odd assortment of people and entertainment made for quite the post-race experience.

The Bastille day event is a bigger annual race that used to be held in a different part of the city and just moved closer to my neck-of-the-woods this year. I'm still not so sure how I feel about the night race thing, and I wasnt a huge fan of the course (which had 8K and 5K running together, looped and had us passing each other, and got confusing quite a few times). But, I think I would give this race another shot in the future. It has promise.

Time: 53:51
Pace: 10:52*

*For some reason my "official pace" is listed as 10:52, though if you take my total time for an 8K and figure out the pace its 10:49. Seems like the race organizers are trying to make me feel even slower than I already am. Thats not nice.