Gifts

So, it seems that me and a couple of my friends have the gift of giving race entry fees as birthday presents and I LOVE it! It started when I gifted Dawn the race entry to a triathlon in Bermuda, then she gifted me the Rock and Roll 1/2 Marathon this year, I got her back by signing her up to raise funds for a charity and race in the Marine Corp Marathon this year and then Bertha got me by gifting me a bib to run the Cherry Blossom 10 Mile Run on yesterday! I love my friends! Bertha got me good! She asked if I was interested, but when I told her yes and asked if it was free, she slammed me by saying "NOTHING is ever FREE!".  I was disappointed, because I was excited about the possibility of running the race this year. Well, when Bertha came to my birthday dinner, she told me about my gift. I was ecstatic... but a little nervous because I had not run more than 6 miles in over a month and the race was less than a week away! Oh well. I was excited about running the race with Bertha and her clients from Fitness Heights International. Another friend, Candice, gifted me a ticket to an event the night before the Cherry Blossom 10 miler, but with not being prepared to go out and run 10 miles, I had to take a pass on dancing until the wee hours of race day morning.

Running races is so much easier than doing a Triathlon in that you can just show up and hop in line. I waited until the last minute to leave home, drove almost 1/2 way to the start line and ran the rest of the way to warm up. I saw a few friends and took some photos and we were off... every woman for herself.

I saw Bertha on the course and we threw high 5's. I saw Lisa twice and she was looking like she wanted to chop off her aching foot around mile 6, I saw Mia looking like she was hurting too. I had to start the self talk at about mile 6.5... you know the, " you are NOT tired! NOTHING hurts! You HAVE done this before! You have run further than this after swimming and cycling! Let's GOOO"  self talk. Then, out the blue someone slapped me on my butt. It was Tania! Whew, she came at the right time! Her and Heather were booking it and I managed to hang with them for a couple of miles. When I hit mile 8,  I started whining and taking little walk breaks. I let them run ahead and suffered through, but I never let mysef walk more than 1 minute at a time. I was well into mile 9 and taking a little walk break, when this girl all dressed up in pink told me, "if you run the last 1/2 mile, you will finish in under 2 hours!". That was my goal, not a lofty one, mind you, but my goal, nevertheless. The last 400 meters was up a little hill and me and the girl in pink kept it moving. I was SO happy to see the finish line and even more proud of myself for banging out a 10 miler with less than a week's notice! Go me!

Next up: Potomac River Running 1/2 Marathon on May 5th