survived!!

so it was probably obvious from yesterday's post that I was dreading the race today. My training runs have not been great lately, and also I am not a fan of cold weather. I had visions of a miserable 2 hours struggling through the race in the cold. Luckily, the reality was much much much better than that! I may have even enjoyed myself during the race!

Our alarms went off at 6 and we looked at each other and asked, are we really doing this? But after getting up and putting on our running gear, we were more energized ~ there's something about race-day morning I guess, that is exciting, even when anticipating sub-freezing temperatures.

Downtown it was a bit crazy with 30,000 runners trying to find their places. And it was cold. But we were prepared, with layers and running gloves/hat/ear warmers. Oh and the GU packets my mom thoughtfully put in a Halloween care package :) Also, being crowded in with the other runners had the advantage of providing a bit of extra warmth.

As for the running, I actually managed to force myself to slow down at the beginning, and stick to a reasonable pace. It was about the same pace that I did the half-marathon, so not super fast. But like I said my training runs were not great - I'd been running almost a minute slower per mile. So I was just happy to be back to my "normal" pace. Also, by holding back at the beginning, I had so much more energy throughout the entire race, instead of crashing at the end, as I've done in previous races. I was super excited that I felt so good during the whole thing! And it was a gorgeous clear day, which made the run right along the lake path very enjoyable.

It's hard to explain, but I've been struggling with running a lot lately, to the point that I was actively disliking it. But today it felt good again - and more than that, it felt fun. I got into the spirit of the race, energized by the crowd (managed some high-fives with spectators) and for once, I was able to smile for the camera at the end of the race (usually my photos just show me looking pretty unhappy!)

I'm just so happy to have another good running experience, because I was starting to think about giving it up. But that would be sad because it's such a great way to stay in shape, and I like sharing the sport with my husband. While I was running, it turned out that I wasn't even thinking about the chocolate at the end very much - thinking about the finish line, I was excited to see Steve, and hoping that he was having a good run too. And he did! He finished before me and was waiting to cheer me on just before the finish. And sharing the excitement of finishing a good race with him just totally made my day :)

The icing on the cake was of course, the chocolate. Oh, so much chocolate. I'm something of a chocoholic, and it was too much chocolate for me to finish! All runners got a tray of fondue with banana, apples, pretzels, pound cake, rice crispy treats... mmmmm. So delicious after running ~ and the fun thing is that after burning all those calories, I didn't even have to feel guilty! We also got hot chocolate (which was good because we definitely felt the cold more once we stopped running) and Ghiardelli chocolate pieces. Though I could not even touch those.. so they came home with us instead. Check it out:

All in all, it was a great race. Looks like I won't be giving up running just yet!