10K race at Suny

Today I ran my second 10K ever. The weather was 28 degrees with terrible wind. Let me just say that this was my worst race EVER. (And not because of my time. It was from the blasted wind!)

Janis picked me up at 9:15 and we arrived at Suny around 9:35. We checked in, and ran into some running friends. We found Elisa and Amanda and we all chatted about how cold it was. It was time to head out to the start line and before we knew it, the horn blared and were off.
The first mile I ran at a 9:51 pace. We were trying to run in the 10 minute mile range. We didn't want to go too fast. Mile 2 we ran at 9:56. We were right on pace. Mile 3 was a 10:02 pace and that's when things started to go downhill.

I was running too fast to keep up that pace for 3 more miles. I felt like I couldn't catch my breath and at times we were running against the wind. I knew I wasn't going to keep that up for 3 more miles. I had to stop and walk. I told Janis and Amanda to go on ahead of me. Amanda ended up staying with me and I felt bad. I wanted her to go ahead and do the best she could. But - she said she wasn't leaving me. (What a sweetheart!)

My pace at mile 4 was 10:45. Mile 5 was 10:33 and mile 6 was 11:22. Can you tell that as time went on I was dying???? I literally thought I was going to have to sit my butt down on the cold ground and have someone come get me in a car. I must have stopped and walked 4-5 times. And I probably would have walked more if Amanda hadn't encouraged me. We only walked for 30 seconds to a minute and then we would start running again. Just when I felt like I got my groove back, a huge smack of wind would come along and then I would end up walking again. It was not fun. It was horrible. I hated it. Amanda stuck with me and somehow we got it done.

My final time was 1:04:17. Considering I walked so many times and (stopped to tie my shoe) - I was shocked to see that I shaved 8 minutes off my time from my first 10K! That was the only good news in this race.

When I arrived back in the lobby, I felt a bit shaky. I was dizzy and had some head rushes. I drank a lot of water, had some peanut butter and a bunch of orange wedges and managed to feel better. It was a tough race and I am sure that is all due to the brutal winds. At least my long run is done for the week.

From here on out - it's unventured territory. I have never run further than 6.2 miles and next week I am scheduled to run 7 miles. Yikes! Hopefully the weather won't be bad. And if it is - I am heading to the gym to run on the treadmill.