Standing in front of the Washington Monument after running in the Credit Union Cherry Blossom Ten-MilerWASHINGTON -- Last year when I ran in the Cherry Blossom Ten-Miler for the first time, it had been only three weeks since a pretty hard ING Georgia Marathon in which I suffered calf pain at mile 15 and had to gut it out to the end.
This year I was coming off of a half marathon in which I felt like I couldn't accelerate very well.
The race started fine, although the first mile was amateur hour in that there was a lot of people cutting in front and jockeying. Didn't anyone tell them this was a ten-mile race?
So I basically took it easy. By mile 3, I was surprised where the time had gone. Around mile 5, I was introduced to the bitchiness of the region when I accidentally dropped a pen and slightly turned around, only to have some girl kick the bottom of my shoe. Pretty ridiculous when she complained.
But it fired me up. I decided then I was going to have a nice race. When we got into East Potomac Park for the last half of the race it was beautiful. Cherry trees line the road on both sides.
At mile 9.5 with the incline, I had a bunch of energy to speed up it and it didn't feel as daunting as the year before (where was all this energy previously?)
But the one thing that mattered was that sweetie and I ran through the finish line hand-in-hand.
The funny thing about this race is I ran it 2 seconds faster than I did the year before. How's that for consistency?
Time: 7:42 a.m.
Temp: 41 degrees
Gear: Tech T, long (Kennesaw Locomotive Half Marathon), Tech T, short (yellow), shorts, Nike Air Pegasus+ 27.
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