Race day!

I ran my first race of the season this morning in Ft. Collins.

I was signed up to do the Colorado 1/2 marathon, but with bad weather and a thrown out back, my last few weeks of training time were kind of ruined. So, I downgraded to the 10K, which ended up being really good.

I ran my fastest time in probably a year: 01:00:29. I am pretty darn proud of that!

The route started and ended in Old Town, and wound its way through a really nice neighborhood with awesome homes, down a country road, then along a bike path that followed the river.

During a race I have little mind games I play with myself to keep me focused. For example, I secretly compete against someone to keep a good pace, which I don't really think is abnormal. At one point, another girl and I were stride for stride - for about three miles. We chatted a couple of times and I found out she also had been training for the 1/2, but got sick and had to go down to the 10K. We were keeping up a really good pace - for me anyway - which was great. Then a little ways from the finish she kicked it up and left.

I also had a couple of girls right behind me the entire race. I heard all about the boy one girl liked, their diets, exercise routines, thoughts on plastic bags at the grocery store...the game there was to not let them pass me. If I heard them pick up a little I would do the same. But about 1/2 mile out they kicked it up also and I was left to finish on my own.

I'm not good at "kicking it up." I find a happy little pace and hunker down with it.

But it was today's happy little pace that got me to the finish with what I think is a very respectable time.

After the race: I'd left my camera in the car, so when I asked a random woman to a picture of me the only backdrop was the Drunken Monkey. Somehow that's somewhat appropriate...