Ten Kay!

That's right ladies and gentlemen, I said 10K!  I RAN A 10K!  (All you hardcore runners can just read this and then pat my head.) ;)  It was my first race EVER and was part of Farmington Festival Days.  I actually registered to run this same race last year but never started training for it since I was having milk issues (a low supply) while I was nursing Ben.  

I guess my getting in shape for this race (and getting in shape in general) began back in September of 2011.  The extra baby weight from my pregnancy with Ben was not coming off on it's own. Shocking!  So I decided to finally do something about it and began eating smaller portions, adding more whole grains to my diet, and fewer sweets.  (I was already doing pretty well at eating fruits and veggies.)  I also started exercising 4 days a week.  By February/March, I had lost all the weight I wanted to and was quite pleased with the inches lost as well.  My lovely sister-in-law, Lara, ran the Farmington 10K last year even though I backed out on her.  So, she suggested I try doing it again this year.  Getting ready to train for a race was the extra motivation I needed to keep me exercising once I had met my weight loss goal.  I googled a few 10K training schedules and found the one I liked the most.  It was an eight week program with running on Mondays, Wednesdays, and long runs on Saturdays.  Friday was a cross training day where I did walking, biking, or the elliptical.  When I started the training I was already running 1-2 miles, 2-3 times a week.  My goal was to do the 10K RUNNING the entire time!  No walking.  And guess what?  I did it!  AND I didn't feel like dying at the end.  I even had to push through a pretty intense side cramp around mile 4.  But I never walked!  I didn't really care about the time, but I thought I could do it in about an hour.  You can check out my stats at the bottom of the post.  Bottom line, I would totally run another 10K at some point in my life.  It felt GOOD!  Possibly a half marathon. :) We'll see... 

Also worth mentioning, during my training I never had a run where I wasn't in pain.  It was pretty rough!  I never got it officially diagnosed, but I think I may have had some sort of achilles tendonitis.  I had intense leg pain between the calf and the achilles tendon.  I tried to drink tons of water, stretch really well, Ibuprofen only went so far, and nothing really seemed to help until I finally went and bought new legit running shoes with only three weeks left to train.  The pain would always back off just enough on my rest days and I felt like I could run on it the next day, and then by the end of some of the runs I was practically limping.  Maybe it was just the stress of wanting to follow the training schedule exactly that was causing me to be too tense when I ran and therefore causing the pain.  Because now, I have ZERO leg pain when I run.  Who knows?     

Another notable event leading up to the 10K, on Monday before the race, McKenna was being "helpful" and pulled Ben's dresser drawer out too far and it came out completely and landed on my foot.  Check out the sweet bruising.  I was pretty sure it wasn't broken, but I went to a sport's medicine doctor to make sure I could still run on it and not cause any more damage.  I got the green light and thankfully it didn't hurt at all on race day! :)   

Here are some pictures from the day! 

The starting line.

About halfway through the race, we were running on a frontage road along I-15.  I heard and saw Dan, my dad, and McKenna honk as they drove by!  They parked and managed to get to the sidewalk just in time to cheer me on as I ran past!  That was a great boost for me!  

 I was so thankful it was overcast and decent temps as well.  Even starting at 6:45am, it was probably 70*+.

The last .2 miles of the race was all downhill!  My sweet sister-in-law, who ended up running the 5K instead, was waiting for me towards the top of the hill to cheer me on and run down with me!   

 A little fist pumping action!

 That's my awesome husband in the bright blue shirt in the middle of the picture with the huge white poster (that my mom made) in front of him.  McKenna's in the blue pants next to the poster.  

I finished!  

 Hugging Dan

 Hugging McKenna

 My sister-in-law, in the pink, and I with her cousin and cousin's friends. 

 Yea for sweaty armpits!

Getting the tracking chip clipped off.

I'm so grateful for Dan, my dad, and McKenna coming to support before 8 in the morning!  I loved all their sleepy faces! :) 

 Love my dad! 

 Such a fun experience!  As I said before, I would totally do it again!  

STATS

• I ranked 88th out of the top 100 overall finishers, both male and female.  I don't actually how many total runners there were.  
• I was 40th out of the top 100 females.
• I was 12th in my age group (20-29) with 29 listed.  
• My official finishing time was 1 hour 11 seconds.
• Pace: 9:44 minute mile.