Yesterday was a race day! The last run I logged was Oct 10. I wasn't terribly prepared for the run with the awful weather this week I didn't get out and didn't make much of an effort as I had also been experiencing a bout of pancreatitus since Monday. I finished in just over an hour and thirty two minutes. My goal was 82 minutes. Darn.
I shall set the scene though. I went down to pick up my race kit on Friday 20 minutes after the process started. It was crazy! Really busy and people everywhere. I got me pumped for the race though. I normally do race day pick up but thought I would go a day ahead this time so that I could sleep in later on the day of the race.
I went to bed Friday night knowing that I was feeling under the weather but still able to function. I figured if I limited my food intake Friday, because food results in pain when I am 'danking' (Dank is my pancreas and when he's inflamed I'm danking). I looked forward to getting in a good sleep and hopefully feeling much improved. I fell asleep relatively quickly and woke up in agony at around 3 and stayed awake until 5.
At this point I had pretty much made up my mind that I would not be racing. I couldn't stop thinking about the fact that I paid a registration fee and I really wanted that medal! When I woke up a few hours later I was feeling slightly better so I sat around waffling for a bit then my mom offered me a ride to the race. I decided to go for it. I was feeling well enough to walk it if I had to. I do not condone what I did as, perhaps from a health perspective, it may not have been the best idea that I'd ever had. BUT IT WAS RACE DAY. So, I skipped breakfast and headed down to Confederation Park.
The weather wasn't super sunny but it was pretty clear and somewhat windy. Chilly. Being near the water I immediately regretted not having brought a pair of light gloves to wear. I warm up after the first k usually but my hands normally stay pretty cool. At the expo I found a really neat pair of mitts though that have the flip back tops to turn into gloves. The tips of the fingers peel back too for easy texting and use of my iPod. It also has an LED light on them. There was no tax on accessories so I picked them up.
The race started 5 minutes late and it was the same route that I ran when I did the 5K, it was just a loop that we did twice. After the first K I realized that my Nike+ was REALLY off. As in it was over reporting how far and how fast I had gone in the past. I knew I was going to be running for what would seem like forever. It was marked every Km so that was nice. I managed to run the whole 10k. I passed one person on the second half of my race. Which is something that I like to gauge my run by. In the middle of the race my mom was able to chat with me and told me that while she was strolling around to kill time she came across another race and took pictures of the runners because she was surprised that there was another event being held so close by. Then she realized it WAS my race.
According to my Nike+ I ran 11.87 K at a pace of 8'14. Which, in relation to past runs would have had me done my 10 K in 81 minutes and 40 seconds so TECHNICALLY I made my goal. But because the thing had previously short changed me on distance all my information was screwed up. My official results are a pace of 9:17 and total time of 1:31:49. I came in last for my age and gender and a 70 + year old man beat me. I was a little disappointed because of my health I didn't know how I would ACTUALLY have done had I been ship shape. It's always really fantastic to cross the finish line though. As I approached it the photographer and volunteer told me I had 150m to go. I have never been more relieved to finish a race. The announcer said that he didn't have access to my name but congratulated me. So the volunteers gave me high fives and called me nameless. AND I GOT MY MEDAL!!! That's all I wanted. I went and grabbed a banana cuz I was still feeling ok. Not the best idea. I felt SO SICK and the pain kicked in, I could barely get down some Gatorade.
Normally I am completely fine post race. This time I got into bed shivering and stayed there watching a Who's the Boss marathon for 5 hours. Overall it was a decent day. I don't regret doing what I did. I knew myself well enough to know that I would be able to walk if I had to and that I had the endurance to make it to the finish.
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