Evening, Friends. I've got to be honest with you, I'm completely overwhelmed at this point. I know I go back and forth a lot on my emotional roller coaster and I hope you're all holding on. Less than 4 weeks left in the semester and I have only 2 more full books to read, countless articles, two 20+ term papers to finish, another smaller paper, oh and I have to figure out how to survive over the summer since I quit my job. Not a good day today. On the bright side I'm at least doing well in school which makes me think maybe this wasn't the worst idea I've ever had. But I digress. Let's get racing!
I was super pumped to be racing with my sister since it feels like we've been separated for years. We drove to Lexington Friday late afternoon to get to the expo. Because of construction they gave us a detour which I printed out beforehand and we didn't have any trouble really. Once we got there, things were kinda weird.
After roughly forever we make it to get our bibs and off we go. But don't worry, there was another semi-imaginary line we didn't notice so we turned back around and got in the second line to get our tshirts which were back at the entrance. Oy vey. Eventually we did manage to get our stuff but the alarming factor was that no one was particularly friendly. We were our usual excited and chatty selves and aside from us, some vendors and a few non-natives it was really quiet. Not my normal expo. We got our stuff, spent a few bucks then left. We stayed in a hotel about 10 minutes away and I met up with a friend for pizza (carb loading...ahem) before heading to bed. It was a late start so it wasn't too bad that I stayed up late watching March Madness (GO CARDS!!!!!!!!!). We left about an hour early which was good because we spent over 40 minutes trying to go half a mile because of the construction traffic. It was full on chaos and disorder which you know I do not do well with. Luckily my new car gets tremendous gas mileage. When we finally got to the gate there were a few volunteers directing but there were a few more chatting with each other so I just turned and parked in the first spot I saw. Not sure if it was legal. We put some pep in our step, stopped at the potties and headed to the start. Luckily we were only doing the 7 miler so we weren't in an early wave. It didn't end up mattering much because they delayed the start 15 minutes since everyone was in traffic. We were in Wave K so we started walking and looking up at the signs. Wave B...Wave E...Wave R...Wave L...wait...what's going on? Yes, you read that correctly, the waves were not actually in alphabetical order. WTF? We found some ladies who also had green Wave K bibs and they told us they were just waiting until the Wave got to them since it was pretty far behind the start. We followed their lead. They were nice...but still quiet. Do people in Lexington not talk excessively like in The Ville?
Off we went at exactly 9:27 am. Less than a mile in we hit our first hill...then another...then another. And my legs were already tired. Word of wisdom, don't PR a 10k and one weekend later attempt a fast, hilly 7 mile run. Particularly when you're trying to also PR in a 10 mile race the next week. I make a lot of bad calls if you haven't noticed. We decided to treat this like a training run for the mini and not go hard. Just run, have fun and work some hills. Oh! And take pictures! I finished in 1:24:48 which averages a 12:07 mile. I'm actually really happy with that! Especially on hills with pre-tired legs. And stopping for pictures along the way. I'm glad we did this race but honestly, it was a bit of a clustermess. The logistics were just not so great and it was a weird crowd. Maybe just more serious runners than I'm used to but that really took a lot of the fun out of racing which was unfortunate. There WAS a medal however which is a plus and the shirts are really nice. Now just recuperating for the 10 miler Saturday and trying not to crack under school pressure. Enjoy some photos of the beautiful bluegrass that is indeed the pride of Kentucky.
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