Woodsmen's 10K!

"Do you like Hills?" that was the first thing I was asked as I was pre-registering for my 10k. How do you answer that?!

What I wanted to do, was run away and forget the whole thing!! I've run 6.2 miles before. I don't know what I was so nervous, but that right there made me want to back out completely. But of course she followed it up with "It's so much fun, you'll love it!". So I followed through and registered.

Backing up a little, I got there SO FREAKING EARLY!! I don't know why I felt like I needed to get there at 4 when the race wasn't starting till 6, but I'm not gonna lie. It was most likely because I was nervous that I wouldn't get there in time to get a free shirt. Hey its the small things in life! So I pretty much got to hang out for an hour and 45 minutes because that's all there really was to do. I could have gone to the woodsmen's field days, but it was 10 dollars to get in, I would've only been there for an hour, and I am wayyyy too cheap to waste 10 dollars like that. So we waited. Luckily my BFF decided that she was going to come watch!!

Then right before the race my parents showed up too :) I'm telling you, running a race is so much better when you have people there cheering for you. I was kinda bummed I didn't have anyone to run with, but having them there to support me was so incredibly awesome.

(BTW, I keep trying to upload photos but they are tilted sideways and it won't let me fix it. If anyone knows how and could teach me, I'd appreciate it ;)

Anyways, about the race. This lady was NOT KIDDING in any way whatsoever about the hills. I'm telling you there were more hills then there were downhill and flat combined. It was super nice though because people of the community had set up sprinklers for us to run through, and tons of extra water stations! There was so much spirit about it all. Not to get cheesy or anything but the community really got together to support us, and that was a great feeling. I finally made it up the last hill, which pretty much had my knees into my chest because it was so steep!! Then there was this nice, long stretch of flat paved road. I've never appreciated flat road like I did then. Then I saw the end, it seemed so much closer than what it actually was, so I decided to really push it. There was one lady in front of me, and we'd pretty much been neck and neck the whole race. But as soon as I got to the last .2 till the finish line, I went all out and passed her! Now I didn't do this because I wanted to beat her. I did it because I wanted to prove to myself that I could really push it when I needed to.

This race was so incredibly hard for me. I literally almost lost my lunch everywhere when I got to the finish line. But I can honestly say that this was probably the proudest I've ever been of me. Now I just can't wait till next year to do it again!

AND NOW!!! For your viewing pleasure!!! A sideways picture of me! lol

I'm the dork that likes to take the same picture over and over before every race...I don't know why

I'm hoping to post about more running adventures soon. Hope everyone is doing well, and running strong :)

~Beverly