When I started running during quarantine, my plan was to run a marathon. That plan was unrealistic for a few reasons: I hadn’t run in almost seven years, and I had three young children and Afa’s parents to care for – in addition to the fear of the impending apocalypse. I registered for the SF Marathon, and as it was delayed multiple times, I realized that a half marathon was a better race for me, at least for the moment. I had been running 3-4 times a week consistently for almost a year, and I started looking for a training plan. The one I initially settled on recommended running a 5K race and a 10K race for practice during training.
Always one to follow instructions, I registered for a 10K race scheduled to be run about four weeks before the half marathon. It was about an hour from my house with a 7am start time, and that seemed easy enough to drive the morning of the race. Afa and I’s anniversary is in May, and we had tried to go out of town for a weekend in May, June, and July, but it never worked out between child care and elder care. As we got closer to the 10K date, Afa decided that we would use it to take our weekend together. I was so excited! I am happy to run on my own but having him there to cheer me on sounded so encouraging.
Because Afa has such an incredible family, his sister traveled between Southern California and the Bay Area multiple times a month while Afa’s dad lived with us. She scheduled a week to come stay specifically so that Afa and I could be away for the weekend. I am so grateful for her love and generosity. Race weekend comes, and Afa and I head up to Santa Rosa.
I had been running for well over a year at this point and felt completely prepared to run 6.2 miles. I regularly ran 12-13 miles in training runs, so six felt like a relatively light day. I had a moonshot goal of running in 60 minutes, less than 10 minutes/mile. I always knew that was going to be very challenging to hit because my training runs were between 14-15 minutes/mile. I wanted to aim high though, and that is the time I ran for the 10K in 2010. Although I started with a different training plan, I settled on Nike Run Club because I loved their guided runs and the app did all the work – you know, except the actual running. If there was ANYTHING I learned from the many guided runs I did, it’s that you start off easy. Starting off with your slowest running of the day means that the longer you run, the faster you go; and that is very exciting.
On race day, I woke up at 5am like normal and had my quiet time; then Afa woke up and we headed to the race. I am punctual to a fault and had no idea how many people would be there, so we showed up about 45 minutes before the race started, and there were about eight other people there. However, crowds started gathering as we got closer to race time, and my excitement started to build. It had been eleven years since I had run in a road race, and I could barely contain my enthusiasm. In all reality, I didn’t contain it at all. I was bouncing around and dancing to the music. Afa kept trying to get me focus and do some stretches, but I was all over the place.
The race started, and I blasted off. Despite months of training and practicing, I started off way too fast. When I got to the first mile marker, I was already winded, and I could hear the Nike Run app on my phone say that I ran that mile at 10:50. Immediately, I knew two things. 1) I was not going to finish in less than an hour, and 2) I needed to slow down or I wasn’t going to finish at all. I worked through systems check I had learned to do during training runs – relax your face, drop your shoulders, release your hands, breath deep. Run your race, not anyone else’s race.
I also learned about the “dreaded third quarter” during training. I could often feel those in my longest runs. If I was running 13 miles, I would hit a wall around mile nine or ten and almost always consider quitting. It wasn’t usually an issue with 10K runs, but during the race, it hit me hard during mile 4. Because I started out too fast, I had to take a walking break. In runs longer than 10K, I take scheduled walking breaks – running eight minutes and walking one. But during 10K runs and shorter, I always run the entire thing. Not today. Not on race day. Not when it really counted. I walked for about a minute and then walked again when I got to the second aid station. Then from mile 5 on, the end was so close that I could feel it. My energy returned, and I finished the race strong. My incredible husband was there to celebrate the end with me.
After the finish line, there are volunteers to give you lots of fluid and snacks, and someone handed me a little cup of peaches. We found a bench to rest at, and the first thing I did was open the peaches, and it tasted like the most decadent food I had ever had. I didn’t take water or energy gels on 10K runs during training, so I didn’t think I would need them during the race. But I was expending much more energy during the race than I had on training runs and some water and fuel would have helped. I’ll keep that in mind for the next race – because there will definitely be a next race.
My final time was 1:13:31, or 11:50/mile. It was much slower than my original goal, but much faster than any of my training runs. In fact, I set records in my Nike app for my 1K, 1 mile, 5K, and 10K times in this one race. It was a victory, and I was so grateful for all the support that had gotten me there. I was a Santa Rosa 10K finisher, well on my way to the SF Half Marathon.
We continued our weekend getaway with a fabulous breakfast at The Naked Pig, a farm-to-table nook in downtown Santa Rosa and then returned to the hotel to sleep for the afternoon.
