Cherry Blossom 10 Miler 214

The Washington Monument and a budding cherry blossom tree from the bathrooms.  Not peak week, but still beautiful!

The morning of the Cherry Blossom 10 Miler, we arrived early, around 6:30 giving us plenty of time to find a good parking place, walk down to the starting line, use the restrooms, and meet up with our running group!  It was really cold though, much colder than I had hoped it would be.  I had bought a really cute new pair of shorts, but as you can see in the photo below, I ended up wearing my winter Brooks Utopia running pants and jacket.  I actually kept the jacket on for the first 2 miles before I had finally warmed up enough to take it off.  Once the sun was up, it was quite warm, but I was still glad that I wore pants and had brought sleeves for after!

I had big plans for a PR, as this is my absolute favorite 10 mile race, and my third time running it.  I PR'd last year by almost 5 minutes and was hoping for another good performance.  Unfortunately, I realized early that this wasn't a possibility.  My running buddy left me in the dust just before mile 2 because I was unable to keep her pace.  I slowed to about a 10:30 / mile at that point, and consistently held that through until the end.  In a way I am happy with that, because I felt like quitting at mile 6 and again at mile 8.  I was SO ready to be done at mile 8!!!!  Thankfully though, I found a second wind and kept pushing through, keeping pace and not slowing to a walk.

Here I am on the left with my husband and my mom with our medals!

I finish this year's race in 1:44:59 - which is amazing because at mile 2 when I realized I could not PR, my "plan B" goal became to finish in 1:45:00!  Isn't that crazy?!  My running buddy, Dale, was waiting for me at the finish line, congratulating me on my finish.  She finished a few seconds over 1:40:00, which was my goal time.  I was sad that I couldn't keep up, but once I met up with my husband, who had run the 5K and the rest of our running group from PR Burke finished, we were all smiles!

PR Burke!  Breathe, Believe, Achieve!

Here we all are in front of the Washington Monument with our medals, we'd all finished the 10 mile race with smiles on our faces!  Another great race in the books, albeit my disappointment in my own performance.  Here's to the beginning of the spring racing season and a renewed commitment to my running and training.  My next race is in just two short weeks!