Race Recap: Loop the Lagoon Results

On Saturday, May 1st, I completed my first race ever…a 10k. And…I LOVED IT! My official time was 1:05:05 and I recorded my fastest mile time to date during the run. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect since I’ve never actually participated in a race before, but I had a blast and I’ve included some race tidbits below.

DON’T START FAST! I took Jenn’s advice to not get caught up in the hoopla at the beginning of the race and just start slow. While I was successful in doing that, I can’t tell you how HARD it was to watch all these people just blow past me. I had to really focus to stay calm and resist my competitive instincts to just speed up. You would have laughed if you heard me talking to myself (in my head, not aloud) during the first few minutes of the race.

KILOMETERS?? So I set my Nike ipod sensor to the 10k distance. However, I did not realize that when I pressed my button to find out my pace that it would tell me what my pace was per kilometer! Jenn knows that numbers are not my friend and there wasn’t a chance in hell that I was going to be able to translate what my per kilometer time was into my mile pace. That was very unnerving at the beginning for this to happen as I was already trying to NOT speed up and run with everyone that was passing me up.

SWEET REVENGE! It was awesome to start passing up all those idiots that blew past me in the beginning. One by one I started to pass them as they either slowed down or were so winded they actually stopped running. It was very satisfying each time I passed someone up. It really kept my mind busy watching people in front of me and thinking about “are they tired?”, “they look like they’re getting tired,” “I bet they’re going to stop,” “I’m going to catch them,” etc. It was fun and kept me really entertained during the race so it made the time pass so I wasn’t concentrating on every stride I was taking or how tired I was.

EMINEM ROCKS! Songs that really got me going during the run: (1) Gonna Make You Sweat by C+C Music Factory (2) Lose Yourself by Eminem (3) Till I Collapse by Eminem. Both Eminem songs made me attack the hills we had at the end of each loop. I didn’t realize we were going to have any elevation to run up but I surprised myself and did really well running up them. It gave me great pride to run at a good pace up the hill, passing a lot of people along the way. When people actually stopped running it almost made me run faster.

FINISH STRONG! My goals for the race were to (1) complete the race, (2) complete without stopping and (3) to hopefully be able to finish strong. I’m proud to report that I met my goals and felt great at the end as I was able to finish strong by running the hill and then sprinted the last half mile of the race. Fittingly, the song that I crossed the finish line listening to was Celebration by Kool & the Gang.

I WANT TO RACE AGAIN! This race definitely brought out the competitor in me. I really enjoyed running in this environment and am looking forward to doing it again in 3 weeks. I have my half marathon race on Saturday, May 22nd. It’s hard for me to believe that I will be running 13 miles – is that possible? In any case, I’m looking forward to crossing another finish line and continuing my goal to finish the ultimate race….the SF marathon!

SF Marathon Here I Come,
Suzanne