Non Scale Victory… 1 hour 16 minutes and 5 seconds…

Today was the Towpath Marathon Race.  No, I did not do the marathon.  I’m not there yet.  Yet…  I didn’t even do the half marathon… which is my all time favorite distance… I did the 10k so I can work and work and work to get the best corral humanly (for me) possible in the Disney Fairytale Challenge.

Preface the rest of this with… the reason I started to try to lose weight was to shave time off of my race pace.  For every 5 pounds lost you are supposed to be able to shave 10 seconds off of your race pace.  I’m just a wee bit off from 50 pounds… that should have been 100 seconds a mile… 2 minutes… roughly…

Back in January, I was hoping to get my per minute mile down from 18 min mile to at most 14 min mile.  That would give me a bit of buffer on a “you have to be under 16 minute mile” race pace.

Today was mostly flat.
Today was muddy as snot
Today was incredibly humid (thank you rain)
Today I finished my 10k in 1 hour 16 minutes 5 seconds.  I was 277th out of 325.  I passed people!  True, I did intervals I didn’t run the whole 6 miles, and with the humidity, some of the miles were harder than others.  But I did them and my average pace was 12:15 minutes a mile.  That puts me right about being able to finish a half in just a hair’s breadth of 2:44.  I may actually be able to move up a corral not just feel like I will be comfortable finishing ahead of the balloon ladies.

Sometimes I beat myself up because people look down on me (you know, those INCREDIBLY SUPPORTIVE people) because I run/walk/run.  I’ve been told more than once that if I’m not running (you know, at a 16 minute “run” pace) the whole race, it really doesn’t count because walking intervals mean that I’m not really running the race.  I’m doing 10K… I’m doing half marathon… I’m beating people who are “running” the whole thing and leaving them in my dust… but I’m not running and it doesn’t count because I’m not as good as they are…. k…

Sometimes I beat myself up because I don’t seem to be making a whole lot of progress.

Sometimes I beat myself up because I’m not as fast, now, as I would love to be.

But today… today I finished strong.  I finished faster than I ever have.  I finished with my Goofy ears flapping in the breeze.  I also finished with mud splattered up the legs of my leggings and with filthy Asics.

My race, my pace.

I am down from a size 20 to a size 8 (10 depending on the cut).  I have lost a bag of squirrel corn.  I feel better than I have in years and years even when my joints ache and I am struggling to breathe in the humidity.

The Towpath Marathon 10k?

Awesome race.

Muddy!  Way muddy.  It was fun to watch people trying to dodge the enormous puddles.  I ran through them.  I needed my best time.  I am not in it to look sexy while I run or at the finish line.

Rude people?  Oh hell yes.  The course is an out and back.  That means that you run to a turnaround point on the path and you re-run the path you just ran.  That means that there are, quite likely, more people running the opposite way you are running.  Their race, their pace.  Add to it the fact ALL three races ended up on the same path for part of the course and you had the potential for having people going in different directions at any given spot.  That said… STAY THE HELL ON YOUR SIDE OF THE PATH!!! I have every bit as much right to my two feet of the very furthest right side of the path as you and your herd (three… four across) has to be on your side.  Forgive me for not leaving the course… leaving the path… so you and your best buds can run abreast.  I’m very freaking happy that you made the turn around before me.  That’s awesome.  I frankly could give a shit.  What I do care about is being able to run my run without getting shouldered aside because I have the audacity to be running the opposite direction.

BITE ME.

To the young woman who was doing the 10k with her dad (I think dad)… the one who was at mile 2.5 when I was coming back at mile 4 plus… I hope with all of my heart that you were able to have the time to finish and that you crossed the finish line.  I’m not sure if she had muscular dystrophy or  what she had but she was running her own race and it was quite awesome to high five her.

It was kind of disappointing that only the full and half runners got medals.

The bagel sandwiches were… not so much…

It would have been very very awesome to get a bottle of water at the finish line with the bananas and apples and candy rather than having to waste cup after cup after cup of poured water… or at lest to be able to refill the cups.

Today, I realized that… while my why was bigger than my but (or even my butt)… my why has changed.  And I’m proud of the work I have done to get here.

OH… and my Goofy ears were a big hit again.  Go me!

Love and Light
April
10/7/2018