TC 10 Mile Race Recap

Greetings! I hope everyone is having a great weekend.

The Twin Cities Marathon/10 mile was today! We finally had perfect weather - it pretty much rained non-stop the previous 3 days so I was relieved that it didn't rain today.

I started out the race weekend by going to the Expo on Saturday. There is definitely a tangible buzz at marathon expos. It's the prime place to contract the 'marathon bug'. I had already decided to do a marathon next fall, but being at the marathon expo made me even more excited to run in another marathon.

Of course the highlight of the expo was meeting my running mentor - Hal Higdon!! The guy is a legend in the running community. He's part of my daily life.


That lovely grid hangs on my fridge and tells me what to do every day. So meeting the master mind behind these training plans was awesome.

I tried not to be too star-struck, but I was pretty giddy when I met him. I bought his new book, which is a novel, which he graciously autographed for me! I was too shy to ask for a photo with him but am really regretting this as my friend Brooke said many people got their photo taken with him. Oh well, that's what I get for being so shy/star struck in his presence. Yes, I realize this makes me a dork.

Here's a photo of the page of the book that he autographed for me!


The rest of my Saturday was pretty low key. I made an awesome pasta dish which I'll be sharing with you later this week. Then I laid out my running clothes & other items I'd need in the morning, which is a race ritual for me.



I had to be up at 5 am so attempted to get to bed early. Total fail. I tossed. I turned. I said Hail Marys. I said Our Fathers. I got back up and read another chapter. Nothing worked. I've been a bit of an insomniac this week, so I shouldn't have been so surprised.

I must have fallen asleep around 1 am? So my 5 a.m. alarm came entirely too fast. I was excited for the race, though, so I jumped out of bed and got ready for my race.

After a breakfast of Corn Chex and some home-made GF banana bread (another post to come later this week), I was ready to head out the door!


Yah, I look a little groggy!

It was a cool 43 degrees when the race started, but the cool weather felt wonderful. The race couldn't have gone better. My goal was 1:40 - 1:45. My chip time was 1:36:10!! Here is how my splits broke down:

Mile 1: 9:08
Mile 2: 9:19
Mile 3: 9:43
Mile 4: 9:27
Mile 5: 9:55
Mile 6: 10:12
Mile 7: 9:57
Mile 8: 9:30
Mile 9: 9:40
Mile 10: 9:19

So there you have it. Totally blew my time goal out of the water! And I am really happy that my last mile was my 2nd fastest. I tend to kind of lose steam towards the end, so wasn't expecting a 9:19 split! I'll run my half on 10/31 and am now thinking I might be able to PR! We'll see!

Now I am going to spend the remainder of the day knocking out a few more things on that to-do list.

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend!