Birthday Race

Thursday was my Birthday. It was one of those "Landmark Birthdays" because I turned 35. It's strange, though, how once you hit a certain age, you don't really feel like you are getting any older when your Birthday comes around. In my mind, I still feel like I am in my 20's somewhere. My body has certainly felt older than that after having kids, so that is why I started running a year and a half ago. I wanted to feel better on the outside.

 

One year ago, I ran the Utah Valley Half Marathon. It about killed me, because I wasn't properly trained for it. This year, I took it easy and ran in the same race, only I ran the 10K (which is 6.3 miles) instead of the Half. I think 10K's are much more my type of race. It gives me enough distance to hit my stride, with enough race left to push myself at the end without keeling over onto the pavement.

 

My goal this year was to run it in under one hour. My finishing time was 58:37. I felt really good about that, having had a sinus infection and then laryngitis 2.5 weeks before the race. Pretty much killed my training schedule those last few weeks before running. I finished 109th out of 436, and 13th out of 56 in my age division (aided by the fact that I had bumped up an age bracket from having a birthday two days before the race). I feel ok about that. I can handle top 25%.

 

Jim has been so amazing in supporting me in this running thing. He helped me get the kids up at 6:30 in the morning to drive me to the starting line, then waited along the course for me to pass by. Next time, I will wear a more vibrant color. Apparently, too many ladies opted for all black and it was hard for him to pick me out of the crowd, but he did it! It was so awesome to see my family cheering me along.

 

Here I am coming through the finish line, after sprinting the last 3/4 mile. I figured that if I wanted to meet my time goal, I needed to kick it up a notch and was so glad that my training at the gym this past year paid off for me. (It did give me some not-so-nice shin splint pain, though!)

Here's me with part of my cheering section. Yep, that's Tysen, giving me his biggest cheer of the day! It was a great race, it felt so good to run it, and I'm happy to report that I feel only a little bit of soreness in my legs. I'm hoping to run another 10K on July 4th. I find that signing up for a race keeps me motivated!