Long Run Sunday, Race Day Edition

My longest ever training run was last weekend. Minnehaha Parkway from Lake Harriet to Lake Nokomis and back. 8.8 miles. I had biked through there before, but you see so much more of it on foot. It was so green and gorgeous. And that was it before the race.

So, yeah. The TC10. I have an account of it up at the Mpls Metblog.

I was not thrilled to get up at 5:30 in the morning. I was a little worried about my bottom system intake and output. But everything worked out okay. Fly Girl very kindly dropped me off at the Metrodome, then just made it home to her house in St. Paul before they closed off the roads. She was waiting for me at about Mile 8 on Summit Ave. She was on her bike, so I saw her again at about Mile 9, once more coming down the chute towards the capitol, and then she was waiting for me in the family meeting area at the end. At which point she promptly informed me that I was completely encrusted in my own salt. After that we doubled back to Summit Ave and watched the marathoners start to come in.

The results are already up. As of right now, they only have our clock times listed. Not our chip times. Chip times are included in the marathon results, but not ours. Meh.

Overall, I placed:

• 2412 out of 4085 runners
• 1231 out of 2492 women
• 328 out of 686 females aged 22 to 29

My clock time was 1:42:55. The average clock time was 1:39:40. My unofficial timing of myself says my actual time was about what the average clock time was, which means I did right around 10 min/mile. Maybe even a little less. Which surpassed my stretch goal of a 10:30 pace/1:45:00 finish time.

I'm pretty proud of myself.

I was totally wowed by the whole thing. The race route is fantastic. The organization of the whole thing was amazing. This was my first "real" race. It was so easy to navigate the starting area and the finish area. The weather was great. About 65°. A little humid, but the sun wasn't out at and there was a pretty good breeze. Getting up on the Franklin Ave bridge going over the Mississippi River was so refreshing.

I'm pretty sore today. Besides running faster and longer than usual, there was a fair bit of up- and downhill, so the pounding on my legs was harder than I'm used to. I woke up a few times in the middle of the night last night and could barely move my legs. I can walk, though. I'm not incapacitated or anything.

So I don't know what to do with myself now. I want to go on to a half marathon. Like, now. There's a small possibility that I may be doing one in a month or so, but that's completely up in the air. Otherwise, I may just hunker down for the winter, although it's a little early in the year for that. It's not that cold yet. I might pick up this winter training program which looks like it'd be easier on a track since it's all based on time. Which reminds me I'm supposed to be looking for a gym. I really need to get on that.