My Weekend and The Tufts 10k

The 10k today definitely did not go as planned. And it would be a slight understatement to say that I was disappointed. There were factors that I couldn’t control and some that I could have. But I will get into that later.

The weather this weekend was absolutely amazing. My weekend almost felt like a 4 day weekend. I had Thursday and Friday off, worked Saturday night, and then had Sunday and Monday off. Thursday was my last day at the Intercontinental. The job just wasn’t working out the way I had wanted it to and it was actually a relief to leave it. Now no more 4AM mornings! I pretty much spent that day relaxing at home and then went to the Taste of Perkins event. Friday was spent with my grandmother but my camera was left at home. We went out for lunch at The Village in Essex and then went to Marshall’s and she got me some cute new jackets and a pair of jeans. That night was spent at Bosphorus with Grace.

Skipping Saturday (because all I did was work), we are onto Sunday. That morning, Grace and I decided to have a nice Sunday style breakfast. And to us, that means pancakes.

This was my first recipe from Mama Pea’s new cookbook and these apple/cinnamon pancakes were DELICIOUS! We were so surprised to have such fluffy, delicious pancakes with so few ingredients. They had so much flavor and sustenance to them; I was full for a while. I topped mine with maple syrup and granola.

After picking up our numbers for the race, my mom and I did a bit of walking around the city. We had lunch at L’Aroma Café on Newbury Street, where we shared an egg and spinach strata and a piece of pumpkin, walnut loaf. For drink, I had the iced London Fog. Yummy!

We also did some shopping (Talbots for her, Gap for me) and we toured the Trinity Church which I had never been in before! It was gorgeous. I love seeing old churches; that was definitely the best part of my trips to Europe.

That night, we went to Papa Razzi for dinner and I had a delicious spaghetti with veal meatballs meal. I was carbing properly and drinking all day yesterday.

Come the morning of the race and…..the nourishment was not up to par. I’m so used to running a race that starts earlier than 10, so I get up, eat and then run. We got up, had some Chobani with granola (That was my first mistake; I always have some sort of toast with peanut butter, but this morning, I didn’t.) and coffee, and then we left to get to the race. We got to the Common around 10:30 and the race didn’t start until 12. I didn’t have anything to eat between the Chobani and the beginning of the race. Big Mistake. I was hydrating enough, but I definitely didn’t have enough calories in me. At the start of the race, I could feel my legs getting a little shaky and this time I couldn’t chalk it up to just nerves. And I didn’t have any Gu with me. I definitely should have had some with me.

All of the following pictures are from Grace’s camera.

Right at 12, when it was brutally hot at 82*, the gun went off and so were the runners. My first 2 miles were pretty even around 9:15 minute miles but around mile 3, I was starting to get really tired. Thankfully not shaky or nauseous, just exhausted. I decided to walk a bit and try and catch up with my mom. We finally met up and ran about a mile together until she had to stop. I trudged on and still had to do a bit of walking from the Mass Ave bridge back to the Common. The initial stop at mile 3 brought my minute/mile pace way down but I knew that I wasn’t going to PR on this race. And I wanted to be able to run with my mom.

After I was done running, I did meander my way over to the medical tent because my sweats were making me shiver. They put ice down my back and gave me a cold blanket with some water to drink. He asked me my name and asked what song I was listening to when I crossed the finish line. He laughed when I said Michael Jackson. Smooth Criminal is a classic! He determined that I was just a bit overheated and had me sit for a while. After about 10 minutes, I was feeling much better.

Stats
Time: 1:08:55
Pace: 11:05
Division: 943/1487
Overall: 3418/6439

This was definitely not my best race in over a year. I was definitely disappointed in myself for not doing better. I know that the weather was hot, but I’ve done 7 mile races in the heat and humidity without this many issues. I was definitely not nourished well enough to run 6.2 miles. (Enough definitely’s in there?) I know that with every race, you win some and you lose some. At least I came out with a valuable lesson from this: EAT! EAT before a race that starts at noon. The yogurt did not help me at all and I should have known that.

There will always be other races and just to have my mom and sister in law there was awesome. This was Grace’s first 10k and she did AWESOME! Check out her new blog where she’s documenting her 30 Before 30 list. She can cross 10k off her list! Next up is a half marathon.

Have you ever done a race that you weren’t proud of? What did you learn from it?

Tagged as: family, lessons learned, tourist, Tufts 10k