Another 10K closer

The 10K is in the books. Next stop: half-marathon in Indianapolis.

Our trip east for the 10K went well. We hit the road immediately after work on Friday, grabbed dinner just out of town, then set about on the small, winding roads to Eastern Kentucky. We arrived in town just after 8:30 p.m. This is the town that my parents grew up in, and that’s where both sets of grandparents lived until their deaths. (My grandparents passed away in 1994, 1997, 1998, and 2004. I hadn’t returned since about a month after my grandfather’s funeral in 2004.) Even though it’d been 4 1/2 years since visiting the town, so much of the place was exactly the same, as though the hand of time left the town untouched. Yet there was enough different that it caught my attention, mostly the addition of some major national food chains in the commercial district.

We checked into the hotel, got settled, and put Baby B to bed since it was past her bedtime. We finally got her settled down and asleep — hiding outside the bathroom for 15 minutes so she wouldn’t see us and want to get up again — then I took a hot bath to loosen my leg muscles before going to bed by 10:30 p.m. to get plenty of rest for the race. Surprisingly, I managed to sleep well during the night even though I did wake up several times.

We got up in the morning and I got ready for the race. I nervously looked outside and expected to see frost on the car windows, but there wasn’t any. Don’t get me wrong, it was still cold, but not as cold as I dreaded.

The race finally got underway just after 9 a.m. I’d say it was probably a group of 30 to 40 runners with me doing the 10K run, then probably another 20 or 30 people did the 5K walk, so overall it was a pretty small group, but I expected that for a race in a small town. The first mile was pretty tough as I tried to get used to the cold air coming into my lungs (I do have asthma), but that became easier to deal with as I went along. I quickly saw that I was going to end up near the back of the pack, and I was right. That’s pretty frustrating mentally (and running is 99% a mind game), but I kept reminding myself that I wasn’t racing the other people; I was racing myself. After the first two miles, all of the runners but one had passed me.

Around the three-mile point, a stray dog took up position beside me and pretty much ran with me the entire rest of the way. That was quite distracting because I was afraid she was going to get hit (even though the local police had a rolling roadblock set up for the runners). I had several stretches when I had to run for a quarter-mile or half-mile, then walk for maybe 30 seconds to catch my breath, but I managed fine…and remained in second-to-last place the rest of the way.

My time goal for the race was an hour and 15 minutes, and I crossed the finish line in 1 hour, 8 minutes, and 14 seconds, so definitely under what I was hoping for. The race organizers had bananas, doughnuts, cookies, and sausage biscuits for the runners, so I ate and we hung out until they had the results ready. I figured I’d just get a little participation medal, but get this: I finished first in my division (females 30-34) and received a trophy!! Of course, our little secret is that there were only two people (including myself) in my division, and the second-place woman in the division was the only person I finished in front of!

Baby B’s favorite part of the morning was chasing down the dog that ran with me since she (the dog, not Baby B) was hanging out near all the sausage biscuits at the finish line. She’d spot the dog, yell out, “Dog-DOH!!!” and run toward her, but then as soon as she got near the dog, she’d slow down and put out her hand with her palm turned up to give the dog a chance to sniff her first.

On our way out of town, we stopped at the cemetery to visit the graves of my four grandparents (obviously none of whom had a chance to meet Baby B since they’d all passed away before she arrived). So in that sense, it was her first time “meeting” her four maternal great-grandparents, which was pretty sweet.

I definitely learned a few more things that will help me with the half-marathon that is now 13 days away. Thirteen days. Six more “short” training runs and one more long one. I’m almost there.

At the start:

Almost at the finish line:

Baby B and me after the race:

With trophy: