Sara's Sweet Life: 10 K

On Sunday, March 13th (my sister's 25th birthday), my dad and I completed a 10 K (6.15 miles). This is the longest distance I have ever run at one time...I believe EVER! I finished the race in one hour and 21 minutes which was really exciting, especially since my dad and I roughly stated right before we started running that our goal was to finish in 90 minutes. It was slightly unfortunate that the race was really unorganized and started late.

As for the mile by mile details, Dad, Mom (our cheerleader), and myself walked from my parents house to Vasona Park where most of the race was held. Once the race started Dad and I ran together for the first 2 1/2 miles before I encouraged him to go ahead as I had been battling a side cramp since about half a mile into the start of the race and needed to take some walking breaks. In the end he finished just 10 minutes before me. Mile 3-4 was hard for me mentally, at that point I felt like we had run so far and we were only at mile 3 ...and all I could think was we are only half way there ...instead of... we are half way there! At about mile 4 I finally started feeling in the groove and my side ache was gone and things were feeling good. Unfortunately that feeling didn't last long and soon the muscle and joint pain was the only thing on my mind. By mile 5 I was just trying to keep my legs moving as I knew I was almost there. The last couple hundred yards my dad came back to finish with me, he was such great inspiration and gave me the encouraging words that I need to push through to the finish line. After passing the finish line I felt such a sense of accomplishment, we hydrated, nourished our bodies and walked back home.

Reflecting on my training, I believe that I could have done a lot more running in preparation for the 10 K and will definitely need to do more training for the half-marathon! Despite lack of training in the past few weeks I was expecting to be a lot more sore the day after the race. I woke up with sore calves but overall felt pretty good (that was until I tried to run on Tuesday) but life in general wasn't too bad! As far as diet and pre-hydration goes pre-10 K I believe I did well with that. I drank probably 4 times the amount of water I usually drink (I historically don't drink enough) the 2 days before and day of the race and increased my carbs. My energy and hydration levels throughout the run felt good. As my training runs and especially for the half-marathon I will be trying some Gu and gels for mid run energy boosts.

I am looking forward to a final 10 weeks of strong training before I will run the SD Rock and Roll Half-Marathon. The 10 K re-energized me (and slightly scared me) for the next few weeks of increased mileage and hard work! Here are some pictures from race day!