Capital 10K: The Race

So the weekend of the race finally arrived and I was both super excited and terrified. The forecast had been calling for 100% rain for race day for a week, so it looked like we were going to run this race in a Texas storm. But as we got closer to the race the rain had held off so I began to hope that I would be running on a beautiful Texas morning, however I wasn’t that lucky. The race is run in downtown Austin, near the capital, very early in the morning. We left the house around 545 so that we could get down there and find parking. We got lucky in that we found an open business, at 7AM, to hit the potties before we went to wait in line to start running at 815. Since we had so much time I took a few minutes to stretch and enjoy the morning with my BFF Stacee.

As we got lined up at the start, there was lots of excitement and some anxiety about the rain. Mostly we chit chatted and tried to keep limber. It wasn’t a crisp morning it was relatively cool, maybe mid 60s, and humid as all get out. There was some low lying clouds that were super pretty to look at.

Eventually 8:15 arrived and we were off… since it wasn’t a super bright or beautiful day it was slightly a struggle to get into the grove. I am not a super fast runner and we were at the front of the pack for our time group, so I got passed often in the first mile or two. I really stuggled to keep it together at that point but I finally realized that this was my race and it was just me and the pavement. I was able to keep it together and pace the race really well. Somewhere between mile 2 and 3 it started raining… that made it extra hard to keep going. Also, the entire first 5K was up and down hills so I had to walk a portion. I struggled on this part, it went up and down and then there was another hill so I had to walk it up.

Eventually I passed the marker for mile 6 and I was so close I could practically taste the finish and smell myself. It was drizzing pretty steady at this point so I was so ready to get to the finish line. Apparently Stacee was watching me cross the finish line and she said that I was so focused I didn’t hear it. I was just trying to make it under 75 minutes. I got close it took me 76 minutes, but I did stop at all of the water stations. I will say that the post race center was sub-par but I think some of that was due to the rain. It wasn't well organized and I was not about to wait around in line for a banana. 

The runners

At the end of the day, I am so proud that I ran the race and I am currently looking for more 10Ks to run in the near future both in Florida and in other states. I think I may start traveling for 10Ks and having my friends meet me there for a run. This is a great run, I think that some better weather would make it just a bit better but I would totally run this again if I could.