GO!

Wonder what it was like to run the Capitol 10K? Here's a visual representation:

Yes, Sunday was the big day. The day my friend Bryan and I were going to conquer the 6.2 mile race, and it had to go and rain on our parade.

Oh, but running in the rain and trying to navigate with my wet, fogged-up glasses was just one of the things I wasn't prepared to face Sunday. Little things such as the steep hills, other runners and the actual distance all kind of caught me off guard. This race totally dominated me, and I kind of liked it.

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Now, let's be honest here. I wasn't ready for this race. That became very clear to me somewhere in the second mile. I was in the shadow of the capitol. I had finally finished weaving through all the walkers that jammed up the field of thousands of fun run participants. I had lost sight of my running partner and was making my way up the first steep hill of the race. That's when I thought, 'what the hell am I doing? You can't do this. Who's stupid idea was this?'

Well, it was my stupid idea, and while it wasn't going as smoothly as I had hoped, I needed to push through. I knew I could get through this. I haven't been doing all this running to give up on my first big race.

Those hills though. Oh my god those kicked my ass. Most of my runs are on a treadmill. Even my outside runs happen on the mostly flat walkways on the bay of Corpus Christi. So you can imagine how difficult and discouraging it was to be drained of energy by those hills and realize I was only halfway through the race.

Thankfully there was Bryan. We lost each in the first couple of miles. He got ahead of me, but he waited for me at the 5K mark. Having him by my side for most of the second half kept me going. When I wanted to stop and walk, his drive kept me motivated. It was also a matter of pride. I knew Bryan had done very little running leading up to the race, so I wasn't going let this guy completely out run me without a fight.

Me loving the outfit (right). Bryan, not so much.

In the end, I ended up walking several pieces of the race, but I knew that was going to happen. And Bryan did finish about 3 minutes ahead of me, but that's not completely surprising (he's a high school basketball coach, plays a lot of the game in rec leagues in his hometown and is all around clearly more athletic than me). I finished with a time of about the 1 hour, 11 minutes. I clocked it, but when I got to the finish line I was more focused on crossing without passing out, not hitting the button on my stop watch.

It was an exhausting race, but I finished. And as hard as the race was for the two of us, Bryan and I were already talking about how next year, how we're not only going to do the timed run, but finish the race well under an hour. I had a great time this weekend, and its given me motivation to keep going.

I'll take a well deserved rest the next couple of days, but I'm not going to waste much time getting back on track. The running I've been doing has been OK, but its not enough. Its time to take this to the next level. Its odd, but running a marathon now seems so far beyond my current capabilities, but at the same time the goal feels so much more within reach.