My dear friend Cait decided to give up countless hours away from baby "L" to train for the 10K to run it with me. I'm a lucky girl :) We live a few hours away from each other so running together on a weekly basis is not possible. So I depended on our nightly texts telling each other if we loved the easy workout, it sucked, and I hope I'm not driving you crazy with all my rants :) I can honestly say that depending on her to listen to me complain and make me accountable was the best motivation ever.
The fun began Saturday night with the arrival of the "H" family.
The little "H" family made their way to Erie and we crashed their hotel to take them out to dinner. Serafini's Restaurant....Yummy Italian food, wine, good company, and steal the baby away from the parents made the night fly by.
Bright and early Sunday morning Toby and I made are way down to the hotel to pick up "H" family.
Super excited and nervous that Cait was going to lap me numerous times. It was my first time running with anyone too. Eek! Can you smell the anticipation? I love shots were you are pretending to not be those people but you want evidence. This pic captures that moment truly.
Of course my favorite past time is to always starting out super fast and burn out quickly. The first mile was a 9 min. and 20 secs. not a bad time however we trained for 10 min miles... no bueno.
Cait suggested running with no music so I agreed. Truthfully I thought it was going to be a disaster. I've never went a mile without my ear buds.Surprisingly, I loved it. I was able to listen to my body and give it the break it needed at times. Good call wingman!!
Miles 1- fastest time of the race and probably the most difficult. Running around the pot holes and clumps of people we started out with 9 mins and 20 secs.
Miles 2 -3 - SURPRISE their were a few inclines that seemed like Mount Everest (I kid but when you run flat surfaces all the time it's a killer). avg. 10 min 20 sec.
Mile 4- The sweet spot. I was comfortable and our pace was good. Once we hit this point we were averaging about 10 min 20 sec miles. I thought Cait might punch a guy for telling us it didn't look like we were pushing it because we were running effortlessly. Little did he know we were pushing it and trying not to look like we were dying.
Mile 5- Hello Mt. Everest you're back and so are we! Which means we are almost done!
Mile 6 to the finish- The push!!! I think Cait and I talked each other through the race most of the time but this was it. We did not stop once during the race and we weren't about to stop now. There was some crazy talk at the end but we stuck it out. I'm not sure if I would have run straight through without Cait counting on me to finish with her. The last turn (or so we thought) I spotted Toby and the "H" family waiting and cheering us on...as well as directing us in the right direction. It never fails I always get lost especially when she is around. Yup the boys, baby "L," along with other spectators were telling us we were going away from the finish line. Really? We came this far and we aren't finishing I think not.
We cross the finish line at 65 mins. together finishing 7th in our age group. According to MapMyRun app we ran 6.5 miles during that race so we either stuck to our time of 10 min miles or the distance was off on the race. I hope the app wasn't wrong and the route was longer than posted. Whatever the case we finished it strong and pushed each other to the finish line.
Another highlight of the race was baby "L" ran her first race too. So cute!
I'm already looking forward to the next big race we will run together!
Now it's time to decide what ones we will train for....
