The Saturday before, I spent all day cleaning my condo and getting my race gear together so I wouldn't have any underlying anxiety Sunday morning. A clean house really gives off a more peaceful feeling than mess. I went to sleep a little after 11PM and slept pretty OK. My alarm went off at 5:07am and I took my time wandering around, getting dressed, programming my iPod, and making my breakfast (loaded protein shake) before I headed out to drive to a metro parking lot. I got to the metro a little before 6AM and arrived at the Pentagon around 6:45.
Left: My view coming out of the Pentagon Metro. Dummy parachuter caught my attention!
Center: Tents with millions of bananas!
Right: View of the Pentagon to the right, Air Force Memorial in the distance on the left.
I met up with my friend April who I met through Team Challenge last year and her friend Carin.
We made our way to our corral together. It's nice to have somebody to meet up with instead of doing it all on my own.
My headband says, "SLOW ... It's the new FAST!" That's me to a T!
I think we ended up crossing the start line at about 8:20am or so. 30,000 people registered for the race, but according to the website, it looks like only about 22,000 ended up crossing the finish line. Wonder what happened to those other 8,000 people!
The view from the opposite end; the Start Line!
The atmosphere was very cool. Of course lots of military personnel, as it was the Army Ten-Miler, afterall. A couple of Army bands along the course, and a highschool band as well. The cheering crowds also make a HUGE difference as far as motivation goes. I tried to take a few pictures on my phone along the course, but turns out pictures don't come out all that well when you're bouncing around...
Left & Center: Running across Memorial Bridge; you can see Lincoln Memorial in the distance.
Right: One of the Army Bands along the way. I gave up taking pics after this one
We started at the Pentagon, ran towards Arlington Cemetery, crossed Memorial Bridge toward the Lincoln Memorial, ran around the Watergate building, back down past the Kennedy Center, then up the Mall; WWII, Washington Monument, and all the way up to the Capitol, then turned around and ran back down Independence Ave and across 14th Street bridge to end up back at the Pentagon. A pretty cool route.
I was feeling good through mile 4, and then I felt myself slowing down. I had to remind myself to try to keep pushing myself to go faster. Then around mile 7, I started feeling my legs. They were starting to get sore.
Shuffling along... I tried to pump myself up!
Mile 8 came and my hips started hurting. And I felt my right foot rubbing against my shoe. Mile 9 mercifully came and went, then the last mile was brutal. The 14th Street bridge was an up & down hill battle and it took all my will-power not to stop and walk. Finally we took the ramp off the bridge to go down to the Pentagon and then turned the corner. There was the finish! I picked it up and gave it all I could (passing a lot of people along the way -- YES!) and booked it to the finish.
SWEET RELIEF! During the race I kept thinking, "Why do I sign up for these things? Why do I do this to myself? I hate this. I don't want to run anymore." Then immediately after I crossed the finish line, I thought, "YES! That was awesome! I bet I could have pushed myself harder. I wonder if I could beat my time in another race!" Again, I experienced the stupid magic that happens when you start participating in races.
I'm to the left
I'm on the right; right under the word FINISH
This is my official finisher's photo
At the end of the day, I felt really good about myself. I was glad I trained well for this, and I met my goal of finishing under 2 hours (really, I am SLOW, so I have to set realistic goals for myself). I had HU-AGE blisters on my toes, but that's a small price to pay for the sweet high of finishing strong.
H O O A H !
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Up to this point 0 "cool" people had commented because I had not commented yet. YOU ROCK SISTA FRIEND!
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