I did it... again!

Nothing like making a big goal and achieving it! I'm so addicted to road races because I just love the anticipation and the training of setting a goal and meeting it. I made my under 2 hour goal for the Gasparilla half marathon.... finishing in 1 hour, 56 minutes, and 45 seconds. It was a hell of a run. I could tell as soon as we started out that as long as I could pace myself in the beginning, I'd be able to turn it loose after mile 3 and hold the pace until the finish. It was warm and humid that morning with the threat of rain, but it held off until mile 12. The last mile I ran through a pretty decent downpour, but it felt pretty good at that point and I wasn't about to let a little rain slow me down! It was also very windy that morning. Around mile 7, the course turned straight on into the wind for three straight miles, like running into a brick wall! We turned the corner and headed back the other direction with the wind at our backs for the rest of the race though after mile 10. My greatest achievement in this race was catching up to Adam's friend Jon just after mile 10. Jon is a fast runner--he left us behind very early on, but as my pace increased over the distance I saw him ahead and on mile 9 and knew I had to catch him. I ran up alongside him, said hi, and the look on his face of sheer amazement that I had caught up to him was priceless! He paced ahead of me for the duration of the race and beat me by about 25 seconds, but it was well worth it just to catch up with him at all. At the super bowl party at his house I had told him one of my goals was to catch up with him at some point, not thinking I'd actually do it.

5 K pre-race pic above...

The 5K was fun too, though I'll take the wind and rain over the heat of that morning! My girls did great, they all finished strong and had a great time. We intended to stay together but with 8500 people running it was impossible. I lost them all early on, then just picked up the pace to the end. I finished in 0:28:44, a little slower than my half marathon time, but not surprising considering the size of the crowd.

Looking ahead to March 15th... a small community 10K race. It'll be less hooplah than Gasparilla or Disney but should be fun none the less. Shooting for less than 54 minutes on that one...!