4th of July 8K...Running on fumes

This past weekend was a busy one due to the holiday. Saturday I went into work at 11:00 am and didn’t get out until 12:30 am. The following day I went in at 3pm and worked until 11:30pm. Earlier in the week my running buddy asked me if I wanted to run a 4th of July race on Monday morning. I told him I couldn’t commit because of my work schedule and not knowing what time I would be getting done the night before. I didn’t think I would be up to running a race because of working such long hours. 

But after finishing on Sunday night I kept thinking about the race the following morning. I have come to the realization the FOMO (fear of missing out) is real. So I rolled out of bed the next morning to meet my friend for the race. 

During the drive to the race it began to rain. My first thought was why did I get up for this? But when we arrived at the race it was only sprinkling. I got in line for race day registration. Another reason that I decided to run it was because it was only $30. Unfortunately they had run out of shirts so I wasn’t able to get one.  

After registering, I waited in line for the restroom, and one of the volunteers came over and said to all of us waiting in line, don’t worry about the start time, we will delay it ten minutes since the line is long.  We then had to walk about a half a mile to the start line. The race was on a trail with packed stone. So it was an easy terrain to run on. During the race it was sprinkling but it felt good because it was so humid out. But luckily there was no sun beating down on us.  

The race was not chip timed, nor corral placement so we just all lined up at the start. I tried to get as close to the starting line as I could. It was very narrow in the beginning and it took me about two minutes to find a good pace. 

The first mile I looked at my watch and it read 6:50. I thought I was reading it wrong a first because I didn’t feel like I was going that fast. I told myself I better slow down or I am not going to be able to make it to the finish if I keep up with this pace. I held myself back a bit after that, but I was still passing runners. During the race I kept asking myself how far an 8k was. I don’t think I have ever run one. I knew it was more than a 5k and less than a 10k so I was thinking it was around 4 miles. Well when I got close to the 4 mile mark there was no finish line insight, so I thought well it must be closer to 4.5 so I kept pushing myself a bit more, thinking I only had a half a mile to go. But I was still wrong! I kept thinking this is the longest half mile. I was running on fumes at this point. I finally saw the finish line, and realized it was closer to five miles. I have never been so happy to cross a finish line!  

After the race my friend told me that I probably had placed, as did he, so of course we had to wait around for the award ceremony. While we were waiting I went over to where I had registered to see if there were any leftover shirts. I was in luck! There was an extra one in my size. 

Score! Not that I needed another race shirt, but it is still nice to have. When the list was posted we went over and tried to find our names. He placed 1st in his age group but I could not find my name, but I was looking at the wrong list. I placed in the overall, not in my age group. I ended up placing 3rd female over all. So we waited for the awards. I received a cup and a coin of some sort (not sure what it represents) and a coupon for a free bunt cake at a bakery that is not even close to where I live. For placing in the overall, I thought it would be something a little more.  After we received our awards we were on our way home and it started pouring out. We were both happy to have beaten the rain. I arrived home and slept the rest of the morning until it was time for me to go into work that afternoon. Honestly, I wasn’t too tired at work either, I kept myself pretty busy and I was on a Runner’s high so that helped too. When I finished at midnight, I went straight home and slept for ten hours!  -L