Hands together for Haiti 10k

On Saturday April 26th, Matt and I ran our first 10k. I started training for it back in January and Matt started training with me at the end of March. I mentioned this in a previous post,but the reason I wanted to set the goal to run a 10k was,because I was already on a good journey for losing weight and I thought having a fitness goal would be more challenging then setting a number of pounds to lose. Let me tell you though... it was so hard!

The morning of the race it decided to be rainy and 40 degrees.  We made sure to dress warmly and to wear rain jackets,but around mile 4 we wished we had skipped the warm jacket and just wore a lighter rain one. I had looked at the route a few times online,but I wasn't super familiar with the area so I had no idea it would be so hilly! The reason we chose this race was because it was on a Saturday and a lot of races out here on Sunday,so we figured this would be the best time to complete this goal. I thought we would be racing against similarly skilled runners,but no. There were tons of marathoners there! I was completely intimidated. It didn't help that the start of the race was straight uphill. I thought that I wouldn't be able to do it within the first 2 minutes,because I had to walk since it was so steep. I also wanted to give up around mile 4,but then I didn't want to be a loser,so I pushed through it with the help of Matt.

We did our last practice run on Wednesday and we did the 6.2 miles in 83 minutes. On Saturday we did 6.2 miles in 77 minutes! That's right we shaved off 6 minutes! That was the fastest I ever ran, I give credit to the hills. They were killer running up,but they definitely helped us speed up on the way down.

I'm glad that I have already completed one of my New Year's resolutions. Now that we have completed this goal I'm going to work on getting faster,so I can keep up with Matt. I would love to have 11 or 11 and a half minute mile.

before

after

Me after our 10k (left) /Me after a 5k(right)