Monday, May 23, 2011

Weekend Report: DCCS 8K Race Report



Friday was fabulous. My friend Stefanie and I spent all day working out – we went to yoga in the morning, then the pool in the afternoon.

Friday evening I got a little cultural and went to the Millenium Stage free performance at the Kennedy Center. It was a “Women in Jazz” show – and wow, those women were good! (You can watch the performance here.) 

Following the show, I dined at Pesce (oh hey Lobster Risotto, where have you been all my life?) – quite the classy evening.

Saturday, LOTR-Emily and I spent the afternoon at Eastern Market, a flea/farmer's market near Capitol Hill. With many other DCists, we meandered in and out of the stalls, sipping iced coffees and contemplating earring options.




Then Saturday night I ran a race – an 8k! For all of you marathoners out there, I’m sure an 8k sounds like a walk in the park. But for me, 8k is 3k’s longer then my normal race distance. And it was hard. I planned to tempo the first half at about 6:45-7 minute pace and then pick it up to race the rest.

It didn’t go as I had planned…but ultimately tuned out ok. I went out at 6:30 pace. Another woman was running with me, and her consistency helped pull me through the first half. Miles 1 and 2 were fine. Mile 3 I started getting overheated…by mile 4 I was not enjoying myself, and the 5th mile was just ughhhhh.

The good news is that I’m a very consistent pacer. I’m like one of those obnoxious wind-up toys - point me in a direction and start me going – I will keep up that pace for as long as possible (but if you tell me to go faster? Well that’s a different story…).

This trait served me well through the first couple miles, but by miles 4 and 5 I was hurting. Like a wind-up toy through chocolate pudding, I clomped along, not really feeling my legs but willing them to propel me forward. They felt like jelly, but holler my legs! because they did keep me going to the tune of an average 6:39 pace!


I placed third and won a massage gift card. Yay! And despite the fact that during the race all I could think was never again, I'm pretty sure I'll signup for the Father's Day 8k, which is the same course on June 15.

Later that night I did my best hipster impersonation and went to a super-trendy dance party on U street (mentally high-fiving myself the entire time for being upright and in motion after my earlier evening running activities!)

After so many verbs, I took a lazy Sunday. I wrote an Examiner article about the race, baked a tart, went to yoga, and then to the drum circle. 


What did you do this weekend? Any races to report?