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<\/a><\/p>\nTo be clear: I’m pretty sure I’ve never run that far.\u00a0 Ever.\u00a0 The most we did at school was the mile and I don’t recall ever running more than a mile or two at track practice.\u00a0 There is a 5K track in City Park across the street.\u00a0 So I started on that and thought I’d just make up the last little bit when I got to the end.\u00a0 Well I got lost.\u00a0 Twice.\u00a0 I kept losing the trail or not being sure and taking a stupid way.\u00a0 Luckily, I’ve been using Map My Run.\u00a0 It’s a great app for all kinds of things but feels like it was made for idiots like me who don’t know how far they ran.<\/p>\n
On Saturday I rested.\u00a0 And it was good.<\/p>\n
Sunday. Race Day. I woke up tired and already nervous about the race.\u00a0 Dan and I had already preplanned where to eat breakfast so we had enough fuel to get us through the race.\u00a0 We went to breakfast and bought bus passes.\u00a0 We had to travel Green for the Runnin’ of the Green right? For those that don’t know, major cities are awesome for St. Patty’s.\u00a0 While I didn’t get to see the Chicago River turn green this year, it was awesome to see everyone when we stepped off the bus.\u00a0 There was green EVERYWHERE!\u00a0 With 3,500 runners it was nearly impossible to keep track of the group!<\/p>\n
I was a lot less nervous for this race than I have for the last two.\u00a0 I had practiced the distance and knew I could at least survive and cross the finish line. My error was in not looking harder at the race route.\u00a0 There were several hills and overpasses along the route. I ran the first mile pretty quickly: 9 mins.\u00a0 Then the route got hard.\u00a0 The uphills would take everything I had and then I would want to walk the down hill.\u00a0 It didn’t take me long to figure out that I was doing it backwards.\u00a0 On the rest of the hills I would try to walk as fast as I could up and then race down to make up the time.\u00a0 Also, it’s a lot easier to go fast as your going downhill.\u00a0 Mile 2-3 was pretty brutal.\u00a0 When I got to the mile 3 marker, I really wanted it to be over.\u00a0 But I kept going anyway.\u00a0 I alternated between running and walking quickly as little as possible but I felt like I couldn’t run as long or as fast as I wanted.\u00a0 On the last uphill, I had to walk.\u00a0 When I turned the corner, the finish line was right there.<\/p>\n When I crossed the finish line, I was happy with my time, but not how I ran the race.\u00a0 I finished 4.52 miles in 48:56 minutes.\u00a0 When I finished I felt like I could have run faster and pushed myself harder.\u00a0 But now I have the confidence that I can run that far and hopefully next time I can have enough confidence to push myself harder.\u00a0 It was a brutal race but I finished!<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n