Okay, so this weekend has already been wonderful. I had the chance to go down with Kristine and Melissa to run a 10K yesterday in Richmond. We stayed with Kristine's friend Brandon, a 2nd year dental student. Brandon lives in this sweet house with three other aspiring dentists. We got there the first night and crashed in his living room. In the morning we got up and cruised in to town. The race was along Monument Ave., so named because of the monuments that seemed to be located at every major crossroads. As I was running, I didn't pay much attention to who all of them were, but the first one was of Stonewall Jackson.
Before beginning the race, I was blown away by how many people were there. I think they said they had around 30,000. The whole street was packed with port-a-potties as far as the eye could see... The race began around 8:30 with the Men's Elite division. They were running for the national championship. We got separated from our group while we were warming up before the race and ended up starting with wave J - the 1hr group. They had gone to our wave F and started. At first it was hard just to get going. There were so many people that you couldn't take big strides, but we moved to the sides and were able to pass and work our way more into the open. At this point I was running with Kristine. We wanted to keep a pace of about 8:30. I don't remember exactly how the miles went, but I know that we had several miles that were really fast - around 7:15 or 7:30 and others where we slowed down so as to not get burnt out before the end. Around mile four I decided to press forward a little faster. I got drinks twice as we were running. I think both times I slopped them down the front of me only managing to get a swallow or two. I'll have to work on my technique. I forgot to say that when we started out, it was raining lightly. Nothing bad as we were working hard and not really noticing it. I did have a problem during the last half of the race with my eyes watering as sweat dripped into them. Ah the joys of a beginner.
Anyway, mile five was a monster. I swear that one took forever. I think it was my slowest mile - around 9 minutes. Then for the last 1.2 miles, I tried to pick up the pace. I finished with a time of 52:12, just a tad quicker than the 8:30 pace. At the end as I stopped I felt like I was going to cramp up or be sick, but neither happened. I was fine after a few deep breaths. I was very happy to have finished. I was also pleased because that's the furthest I've ever run continuously in my life.
Here's a picture of Melissa, me, Brandon, and Kristine after the race. If we look a little wet and bedraggled, you can chalk that up to the rain :)
After the race, we had a wonderful time attending conference at the stake center. We ate a tremendous amount of food at Applebee's (I love that place) and took in some ice cream together after priesthood. We finished the night with the Kansas vs. North Carolina b-ball game and some blistering foosball action. I suffered a stinging defeat at the hands of a formidable opponent.
