When I woke up bright and early on Saturday morning (around 6ish), I started to question my sanity. It was still dark outside. I could hear the rain pounding against the roof and a quick check of the weather indicated that it wouldn't be letting up anytime soon. I laid in bed as I debated with myself; I knew I would be happy if I went, but the bed was sooo comfortable and warm. But I had already signed up for the race and I knew I would regret it if I didn't go. So I got up, got dressed, and after a quick stop at Starbucks, headed out to the race.
The drive there was relatively painless and I soon arrived in the quaint town of Denton. It was just lightly drizzling at that point, but it was still overcast, slightly chilly, and a little windy. I didn't see too many runners outside, but I figured that they were inside the local community center where bib and shirt pick up were located. Sure enough, when I got inside, there were a fair number of people huddled inside the entrance waiting for the race to begin.
After picking up my bib and shirt, I hung around inside for a bit, checking out the door prizes and local charity brochures and flyers. Here's a picture of one of the displays the organizers had set up - all decorated for the holiday.
I had remembered from last year's race that there were a lot of turns on the race course, so I took a few minutes to study the posted map and noted that there would be six turns on the way out and six turns on the way back. I filed this away mentally so I would have a reference point for how many turns to expect as I ran.
Armed with that knowledge, I trekked out into the elements. I ran a few warm up laps around the block, stretched a bit, and generally acclimated to the outside temperature and conditions. By that point, there was about 10 minutes to the start and I was ready to run!
At about five minutes before the race, I joined my brave fellow runners at the start line. I wanted to be fairly close to the front of the pack because I had decided on the drive over that I wanted to actually race in this event. I did pretty well last year and I thought that with my current training schedule and abilities, I could possibly place in my age division. With that goal in mind, I purposefully left behind my music player in order to concentrate solely on the run ahead of me.
The wait to start was soon over and I was off! I knew this race was going to be a challenge - not because of the course - because of the weather. As I ran out, the wind was whipping at my face and the rain was blowing hard, creating extra resistance. By the time I got to the first half mile mark, I was soaked almost all the way through. I kept telling myself as I was running that while it was tough now, at least I was running against the wind for the first half of the race. This meant that during the second half (or back half) of the race, I'd have the wind to my back, helping to move me forward. This thought gave me comfort as I pushed through the elements towards the turn around point.
Despite the weather, the race course itself was nice; on the way to the turn around, I ran through several neighborhoods, past a field, and by an elementary school. There weren't too many spectators, but I couldn't blame them given the weather. There was one small "hill" but it was very manageable and over before it really started. I was able to keep a good pace and soon reached the turn around point.
As expected, the back half of the race was a little easier than the first half because the wind was at my back. It was still raining however, so I continued to push myself to the finish so that I could go back inside where it was warm, When I made the last turn on the course and saw the finish line straight ahead, I kicked it up a bit to finish the race strong.
After I cooled down and stretched for a bit, I headed to my car to change into some dry clothes. I'm so glad I had remembered to bring some with me. Here's a picture of me after the race - you can see that I got pretty soaked!
I was anxious to see how I did so I headed back to the community center to check out my time. I grabbed a banana, some pretzels, and some water that was dyed green for the occasion. There were only a few people inside at this point, but there was some after-race entertainment!
I made my way over to the results and was ecstatic to see that I placed first in my age group! Not only was this the first race that I had ever placed in, it was also a personal record (PR) for me at 26:03! Needless to say -- I was very excited! Here's a picture of the front and back of my medal - it's really cute!
So all in all, I'm really glad that I made myself get up and go that morning. Although the conditions weren't great, I had an awesome race! And most importantly, I proved to myself that my training is working and that I'm making steady improvements along my running journey.
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