Defining moments

May was a really good month.

First, there was that PR-breaking 5K. Then that PR-breaking Half Marathon. I took a week off from running and then the kids and I did the second Wildcats marathon at school. SkyWalker ran on his own and although the Princess started out with me she eventually ran ahead too. I had to stay with Chewie and motivate her to keep running when she stopped to walk every two minutes. It was a really long 1.2 miles but there was no crying this year and I was mostly just really happy that the Princess ran her own race.

The gang

I wasn't intending on doing the Freihofer's this year because it was just 2 weeks after the Half Marathon and I took a week off from running and I don't want to get injured and yadda yadda yadda. But it's been FIVE YEARS and I only ever skipped it once when I was pregnant.  How could I not run it? So when a friend said, hey wanna do Freihofer's?, there was really only one choice. We both said we would take it easy and just enjoy it since we both had different reasons for not wanting to push it.

Me & Jen before the race

We started the race together and even though we never once talked about it and we didn't say a word to each other while running, we stuck together. There were times when we took different paths to pass people and one of us would get slightly ahead, but then we'd be together again. There were roughly 3200 women running so it was a bit congested in the beginning. I did the first mile in 9:07 and thought ok, taking it easy. But then we were speeding up and around 1.5/1.6 I started doing the math and thought, hmmm, we might actually do pretty well if we keep this pace up. I did the second mile in 8:48. Around 2.5 my bladder hit and I was super glad I was protected. Jen got slightly ahead of me and I started to doubt I could finish strong. I could still see her and I just focused on her and tried to forget my rotten bladder. I tried to speed up but it wasn't happening.

Had to steal a couple of glances at my foot,
since I seem to have lost my SRM bracelet!

Then at 2.8/2.9 I thought, this is it, if you're going to make a move, you've got to do it now. This is your defining moment. You can either accept a perfectly reasonable time after having just raced a half and taking a week off, you can be satisfied with this, you can be complacent, OR you can rise up, accept the challenge and get it done. I chose the latter. All I focused on was catching up with Jen and I closed the gap so we finished together. I did the last mile in 8:28 and the last .1 in 7:09.

Perfect negative splits:

This makes me giddy. 

We passed the clock at 28:01 and I knew that would be a PR for her because of our distance from the start line. I wasn't even thinking about my time. I was just so happy for her. She wound up with 27:26! A major PR after having a baby in September! Isn't that amazing? I was so proud of her! My net time was 27:24. Yes, 2 seconds shy of my new overall PR. I was THRILLED. I hadn't intended on running fast, I haven't been doing speedwork, I haven't been biking, I took a whole week off from running! And there were 3200 women running! It was a definite Freihofer's PR. Everyone says you can't really PR in this race because of the size, but we did pretty good. (Our speedier friends finished with unbelievable times). We beat over 2500 other women! I love that I finished nearly 6 minutes faster than my very first time, I love that I finished 34 seconds faster than last year, I LOVE that we did perfect negative splits, but I really love that we finished it together.

No age awards here, but not too bad!

Stats
Total Mileage: 49 miles
Running: 49
Biking: 0
Crosstraining: Um. Does pool cleaning and gardening count?
Races: 3

Lots of double run days!