Yep, you read that right! Despite shoddy training, lack of motivation, mountains of studying, and sheer laziness, I pulled it together and got up at the crack of dawn this morning to run a stellar 10k race, copious amounts of whining the night before notwithstanding ("whyyyyyyyyyyy do I do this to myself? WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYY?" - it's a wonder I still have roommates who love me).
Pre-start time was a bit of a disaster zone - DEFINITELY not enough porta-potties for 8000 people (especially counting those of us who express their jitters by having to pee TWICE before a race - ahem no naming names here, but let's just say that by the time I got through (again!) there were people with megaphones yelling "almost start time! Just hold it if you don't have to go that badly!" Hold it??? For 10k? Not me, babe.) Baggage check also took aeons, so it's a good thing I was super paranoid about arriving on time and ended up being way early - I needed every minute!
But those were only minor annoyances. The weather could not have been better, the course was sublime (love that net downhill!), and I stayed on pace, super focused, pushing steadily but not too hard for the entire distance. My dearly beloved Garmin was having some PMS, however (I suspect it may have calibrated itself from inside the porta-potty, actually...) and from the first mile my "splits" were completely wonky - it had barely charted a mile by the time I hit 2k. So no mile splits, to my sorrow, but a very respectable (for a turtle) pace of 5:45km - that's how they do it here in these Canuck races, okay? ;) - working out to a final chip time of 54:47 - more than a minute off my time in last year's race, and yes, a brand new shiny shimmery 10k PR!
To think - that was without proper training. One of these days, I will really whip myself into shape, and THEN we'll see what I can do :)
