Part two is all about the Sporting Life 10K! I did this race for the first time last year and I absolutely LOVED it! Even though it rained. It was freezing. But even under those conditions, I made myself a PR of 48:36!

This year, I had to prep the night before because I ran the 5K. I took the masseuse’s advice and had an epsom salt bath which took all that lactic acid out of my quads. I was ready to go. I woke up on the morning of the 10K and tweeted:

I had nothing to loose but I’m not going to lie, I was afraid of going out too hard. Pre-race I did a nice warm up: an easy jog, some speed walking, followed by a good stretch.
I was determined to get a PR and flew down the course:

I started to feel my quads tense up again and I told myself that I just wanted to keep a nice steady pace. The downhills came at all the right times and I was really loving the water stations. I definitely drank my water while taking a little walk break because I felt like I needed it. But then I was off again! No walking for this girl. I was actually feeling really good and I still loved this race. 

Around the 8K mark I started to have a nice mist come down on me and I could feel my legs wanting to walk. But I told myself that I had to finish hard because I didn’t want to regret not giving the race all I had. This was my last race of the weekend and I had the week to recover. I had nothing to loose. Although, if my face looked like this the entire time, maybe I was loosing my street cred:

Can you say, hello B*tch slapped! I bursted out laughing when I saw this picture. I’m just so pretty. All. The. Time. 

Coming up to the last kilometer is ALWAYS my favourite. Not because I’m in a, “can that finish line please get here faster?!” Mind state but because I know that when I have less than 500 meters left I’m going to sprint through that finish line. It’s my thing. I love to show that finish line what I’m made of. Finish Strong. That’s my mantra. And it’s exactly what I did:

My favourite part is all of those men behind me. As I sprinted passed them they all had the same look on their face that read, “Is this 4’9″ girl seriously beating me right now?!” Sorry boys, but I did it. It really makes me laugh because as I was walking to my corral at the starting line a guy said, “I am just going to try and forget about all these women in front of me!” Poor guy. I couldn’t help but laugh to myself. 

The finish line was actually the best one I have ever been too! There were SO many booths at the end! My favourites were the chocolate milk, chobani, bananas, bagels, cross fit demos, and of course my elite friends: 

Pat actually finished this race in 35:06 and was the 23rd runner to cross the finish line with 21,000+ participants. AMAZING! He is a beast. 

So, how did I do? 

This was the first time I have ever ran 2 back to back races. 

This was a 5K the first day and a 10K the second. 

YES! Maybe I will challenge myself to a longer distance next time!