26,000 Army Strong!

Yesterday, was the Army 10 Miler, the largest ten mile race in the country.

It was a beautiful day in the district, 52 degrees when I woke up at 5 a.m. Walking to the metro, I had goose bumps on my legs, so I knew it would be a good running day. You know it's a large race when everyone on the metro had race numbers on. It was quite a site.

As we arrived at the Pentagon, the sun was just rising above the Potomac. It was truly a beautiful October morning. With the weather on my side, the only real concern I had was the sheer volume of racers I would be tripping over the first couple of miles. A plane took off from Reagan National Airport as the gun went off. I could only imagine the captain coming on the loud speaker telling the passengers to look out their left window. Twenty plus thousand racers were lined up to take to the streets of DC.

My partner in crime told me to just look at my feet until things spaced out a bit. That I did. I went with the flow of the crowd and ran the first mile in 8:51. This is the first race I ran with my new watch. It confirmed how great of a purchase this was. I wrote all goal split times down on a post-it note last week and memorized them, along with my overall goal time. After the first six miles, I was well ahead of my pace. I had planned to do a negative split time, but was feeling good during the first half and knew there were some difficult hills at the end, so with my eye on my watch, I reevaluated the course and decided to do a positive split. I hit six miles about two minutes ahead of schedule. Miles seven and eight were my slowest miles, but I knew I had to save my energy for the last mile. After running the previous two miles at a 10 minute pace, I pushed hard through mile 10. I had 8:30 left on my watch before I hit my goal time. I ran that last mile in 8:49. I crossed the finish line at 1:37:24... only 19 seconds after my goal time. I was pretty damn pleased!!!!!!

Overall, I was very happy with my ten miler performance. I would like to work on pushing through the miles right after the half way point better. I was successful at managing the water stops, even with the crowds. I jogged through them, not stopping or walking, but thinking of them as a rest point, which helped mentally. I run hills everyday living in DC, but they are still something that I struggle with. I had some minor foot issues around mile 8/9, but during a race it doesn't seem to affect me as much as training. While I hit my goal, I still think of each race as a learning and growing experience.

Flashing back two days, the race expo was great. I got a shirt that I wore on race day that says "Will Run for Ice Cream." I got a lot of cheers for "Ice Cream Girl" during the race!

This was definitely a great race. The crowd, the other runners, and the course made it an exciting morning. I wish there was a better way to get back to Virgina at the end, but every course has its challenging sections. I'll definitely sign-up again next year!