The Weekly...Something

Happy Labor Day!
Greetings loyal blog followers! I hope you are all enjoying your long weekend. I know I am. I love long weekends. I wish every weekend was a long weekend. I think I would be more productive in the 4 work days I had available to me than I am in the 5 that I have now. Don't you think? You do, admit it. I went to a high school (Custer High School, in Custer, SD to be exact) and they always had 3 day weekends. No lie. We went to school for extra hours Mon-Thurs and had Fri, Sat & Sun off. Brilliant! *Sigh* If real life were like that...well, then, we'd have summers & spring break off too. Oh well. As Billy always says, "that's life." I'll take my long weekends when I can get 'em and be happy! So, without further ado, let me tell you what I've been up to with my days off ;)

The Race
I ran a race yesterday! It was the 2nd in the Readiness Series that I signed up for in order to prepare myself for the marathon in December. Now, to properly set the stage for what went down at 6 a.m. on Sunday morning (I think I've mentioned before that being a runner means sacrificing slumber somtimes - even on magical long weekends) I have to tell you what went down on Saturday evening.

Saturday evening I decided that I needed to start pounding water. And eat a bowl of pasta. Check and check. I set my alarm for 4 a.m. and turned the lights out at 8:37. I patted myself on the back as I was drifting off for being so good the night before a race. And then I woke up every 1 1/2 hour to pee. I'm not lying. I was up peeing all stinking night. When my alarm went off, I swore under my breath and started arguing with myself over whether or not I really needed to run this race. Funnily enough, this blog pulled me out of bed. What was I going to do? Write about what a lazy quitter I am? NO! Get out of bed, Ash, and quit yer bitchin.

So I did. And Sunday morning, at 6 a.m. I took off running, but I still wasn't happy about it. I told myself that this race didn't count because I was tired and unprepared and didn't care. "Whatever" I thought, "I'll just finish it." Good mantra, as it turns out! When I passed by the 2 mile mark, my watch said 15:56. That's dead on 8 min/mile pace (which is what in my happy, shiney dream land I'll run for the entire marathon in December). Yay me, I thought. And then I passed the 3 mile mark at 24 minutes, and the 4 mile mark at 32 minutes and the 5 mile mark at 40 minutes...you get the picture. Naturally, this is all +/- some seconds but the point is this: I crossed the finish line according my my watch at 1:40:15. The race was 20K, which is roughly 12.5 miles. If you do the math, that's exactly an 8 minute mile pace.

It wasn't all sunshine and roses, though. Barbies passed me. A little old asian lady who looked to be about 90 passed me. I had to stop after mile 6 and use the most unpleasant resting facility I've ever enocuntered. BUT...I ran 12.5 8 minute miles!!! I don't care who passed me! All I cared about was making sure I hit the next mile marker in 8 minutes. It was such a great feeling to be able to pace myself like that.

The Results
If you don't believe me, you can check my official race results here. I finished 162 out of 598 and was 10th in my age group (out of 65). My official time was 1:41:29, but that is slightly inaccurate since everyone's time started when the gun went off, not when we crossed the starting line. Does the make sense? I didn't start my watch until I crossed the starting line and stopped it when I crossed the finish line. Anyway, I could not be happier with my results. Regardless of how I placed, I'm very happy with how I ran.

The Weekly Weigh-In
...Has been suspended this week. I didn't weigh myself yesterday because it really wasn't on my mind at 4 a.m. And I didn't do it today becasue, well, I just didn't think about it. So, I'll save my ego and the heartache for a week and face my arch nemesis (the scale) next Sunday and get back on track.

For now, I'm off. I have a beer to drink, puppies to play with and a Labor Day to enjoy. Thank you again for all of the lovely comments and support. You are seriously the best.