Austin 1020

On Sunday I ran in the Austin 1020, which is a 10 mile race with 20 bands along the way.  My sister-in-law, Renee convinced me to run it with her in celebration of our 30th birthdays.  I had been training for this race for just under a month, so I was pretty nervous about it.  In my training, the furthest distance I had run was 8 miles.  And I did that only ONCE. So thinking about having to run 10 miles had me pretty nervous. 

We arrived at the start line bright and early and prepared to run with about five thousand other runners.  It was a really cloudy day, and looked like rain the whole time, but luckily it did not, and the clouds kept things cool. 

The race turned out to be really fun!  The bands were a nice distraction, and the atmosphere was really upbeat and laid-back.  It was also really nice to run alongside Renee the whole time, even though I told her on several occasions she could totally go ahead, since I am 100% sure I was slowing her down.  But she was nice enough/sympathetic enough to stick with me.  My favorite mile was mile 6 when they handed out iced wash cloths.  At that moment it was the best thing I'd ever experienced.  My least favorite miles were miles 9-10... since those were distances I had never run before.  During those miles, I started getting really overly dramatic and thinking things like, "Oh my God, I don't even remember what my life was like before I started running this race!"  I wanted to stop so badly, but what I wanted even more badly was to just be finished, and at that point I knew the only way to finish faster was to keep running.  I was hurting though!  Sidenote- I realize I sound pretty negative, I just unfortunately am not one of those people that enjoys running immensely, gets the "runner's high," etc.  I did have fun though- promise!

David met us at the finish line, and we spent some time stuffing our faces with the post-race food, drinking our free beers, and listening to the final band (Puddle of Mud).  Apparently we ran straight back into the early 2000's?...

Just after we crossed the finish line- hands already full of food.

 

Finishers!!

I'm proud of myself mostly just for signing up in the first place, but also for going through with it and finishing at all!  But I'm also proud that I met my two other goals: 1.) Do not stop running the entire time and 2.) Finish under two hours.  I think my final time was around 1:45.  So I'm pretty excited about that!  What I'm even more excited about though, is that I get to stop running now :-)