World Wide Festival of Races

This weekend is the World Wide Festival of Races weekend.  I had originally signed up for the 10K a few months ago.  Then some freak-ass illness got me, (I swear it was swine) the weather was constantly ugly, (read - really hot with unrelenting humidity) and my hamstring was giving me issues.  Running was not my friend for the past 6 weeks, or maybe it was me who was not a friend to my running.  So I got on the WWFoR website and changed it to their 5K.  Then I sat and thought about it.  I mean, really, why should I take the easy out on it?  Sure, my training had suffered greatly, and I was in no way ready or in no mood to run a 10K (insert bitching about pain and weather here).  But what fun is it if you don't try and push yourself?  So I got back on the website and signed up for the 10K again.

And then I didn't run yesterday. 

But I got my iPod ready with a few running podcasts, got my running clothes ready, stuck my G2 in the fridge, and went to bed early last night. 

I finally got out of bed at 5:12 this morning.

I had 1/2 of a bagel, some juice, and got ready to go.  Thankfully there is no picture of this because you all would be horrified to see what I look like at 5:15 in the morning.  It's not pretty.  This is why I wear a hat.  My hat, my hat, my funky, funky hat!  I tucked my bib number into my arm band that holds my phone, strapped on my iPod, my Garmin, my knee bands, and grabbed my water bottle (which is never really filled with water) and out the door I went.  OMG, can I just tell you it was already 72 and with about 95% humidity.  Ack!  This was not going to be pretty.

It wasn't.  There was more walking than I really thought would happen, but it was good.  Listening to The Extra Mile  and Pheddipidations podcast for the race was really nice.  They were funny, motivating, and kept reminding me that there were many other people in at least 44 different countries running this weekend, too.  Hopefully someone was running at the same time I was.  And if they were, they were definitely running faster than me!  My legs were on fire and felt like rubber but I was not, was not, was not going to not finish. 

So I finished.  6.2 miles in as much time as it probably would have taken me to walk the whole thing.  Seriously.  But I'm really glad I didn't settle for the 5K and do what was easy.  Doing things with the least amount of effort is, well, it's probably not a good thing most times.  Plus, I promised myself that I would do this, and I don't break promises unless it's beyond my control. 

Here's the route I ran:



Once again, I am desperately hoping for cooler weather so that running this route won't cause me to wish for a speeding meteor to take me out.

For those of you that ran the WWFoR this weekend, congratulations.  It was a pleasure to run with you.