the 10k!!!!!

I have achieved my goal!

This unseasonably warm morning of October 9th, I ran my first 10k!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was about 20 degrees warmer than I would have preferred but the sun was shining and Elm Creek Park reserve's display of fall foliage made for a gorgeous, albeit extremely hilly, run. Amber and I started out together, but around mile 2 a long slow incline separated us and we spent the remainder of the run on our own sojourn, fighting the hardest enemy of all: ourselves. 

When I said the course was hilly, I do not lie. It felt like the whole thing was a series of varying sizes of hills with very few downhill relief points. It was TOUGH!  Luckily for me, I live in a very hilly suburb so the majority of my runs involve hills. I also tend to run faster uphill because I just want to get it over with quickly and then "rest" on the downhills and straightaways. It was enough hills that by the last couple series of hills I was swearing to myself and wishing I could just stop, but knowing that I would feel worse if I did. So I kept pushing onward.

From Mile 2 to around mile 4 I ran with a fellow 1st 10k-er and it was going well. She had one of those sophisticated watches that told you distance and pace. I lost her at mile 4 though when she decided to walk through the water stop and I kept going. From there on I was back to being completely by myself. I think Mile 2 to 4 were actually the hardest because they felt like they were dragging to me. At Mile 5, a volunteer was giving each passing runner an update on time. I crossed mile 5 at 56 min 40 seconds! Wow! That really gave me an idea that I was going to make my goal of 72-75 minutes, little did I  know I was actually going to come in UNDER my goal. I hit the 6 mile marker and began my descent to the finish line and even managed to sprint across the finish line. And promptly wanted to throw up. That last push and all those hills really took a lot out of me.

Time I saw when I crossed: 70 min 30 sec!!!!

Later today I found out my actual time: 69 min, 58 seconds!!!! So I completely blew my goal out of the water and came in under 70 minutes!

Amber followed in a couple minutes behind at 72 min, 40 sec. 

I celebrated tonight with a few things

1) Totally took about a 1/2 hour nap this afternoon

2) No food tracking

3) because of no tracking, I essentially let myself have whatever I wanted because gosh darn it, I deserved it as a reward for achieving my goal

Oh yeah, Icing on the cake, I weighed in at 137.6! Down 11 pounds since July.

I feel amazing, proud, grateful and fired up for my next goal and to keep running.