Cherry Blossom 10 Miler Recap

I know it's very, very late but here's my recap of the Cherry Blossom 10 Miler in D.C. on April 3! Better late than never.. First let me say that I really appreciated all of the support and congratulations you all have given me through Facebook and Twitter!

My parents and I left that Friday morning and drove to Maryland. We stayed with one of my dad's friends from college, also named Bob. He was very welcoming and his house was beautiful! We went out to dinner at Clyde's after settling in and having a beer at his house =)

 

Mom and Dad outside Clyde's

I went to bed relatively early that night. I was pretty tired and I knew I probably wouldn't sleep well Saturday night, I never sleep well before races! The next morning I got up around 7:30, showered and we headed out for breakfast. We went out to breakfast at an adorable little restaurant (the name escapes me right now) and hit the road for D.C.

We got to D.C. and immediately went to the National Building Museum to pick up our race packets. We lucked out and found a spot at a meter about a block from the expo.

 



















The line was incredible! It wrapped all the way around the building! I thought we would have to wait in line forever but it actually went pretty fast.

 



















Once in the building, we went upstairs and got our bibs then continued downstairs to get our shirts. The shirts were actually really nice! I decided to buy the tech shirt too and I've already snagged it in 2 places =(

We walked around the expo for a bit then drove over to the hotel (The Grand Hyatt) and checked in. I didn't want to walk around too much, but I really wanted to go to the Human Origins Exhibit at the Natural History Museum (I'm a nerd like that)

The exhibit was really interesting but there were so many people that it was hard to move around and very distracting.

 



















I even found a couple books in the museum store that helped me with my paper for my paleoanthropology class =) Win! After the museum we started to walk back and saw Capitol City Brewing Company directly across the street from our hotel. We were just going to stop in to have a beer but decided to just eat dinner.

I had a tuna steak burger with sweet potato fries =)

Absolutely amazing! The rest of the night was pretty lazy. I showered when we got back and set out all my clothes and things that I needed for the race in the morning!

I fell asleep around 8 while watching tv and woke up again at 9. Then of course I really couldn't sleep.. I did end up falling asleep again but my alarm went off at 5:15! The race started at 8:00 and we decided we should leave around 7:00 to walk down there and get our bearings. It was a little over a mile from the hotel to the Washington Monument.

There was a group of girls dressed up as cherry blossoms that me and my dad were walking behind so I, of course, stopped and took a picture with them =)

We were in the green wave, which was the 1:40-2:00 time group. We quickly found our flags and found our way to the middle of the pack

 

It was an absolutely perfect day to run! The only problem was the race was so congested that we couldn't even really run for the first mile. For a while I was walking at the same speed my dad was "running." I was pretty frustrated for the first 2 miles because I couldn't stick to my 3:1 run/walk plan and we were moving a lot slower than I wanted to.

After the 2nd mile I realized this wasn't going to be a fast race for me so my dad and I decided to just enjoy our time running. We ran when we wanted, walked when we wanted and took a lot of pictures.

I didn't take a picture but around 8.5 miles there was a guy who had set up his own aid station on a picnic table with a sign that said Free Beer and Oreos. And sure enough, he was handing out oreos and cups of Yuengling =)

We finished the 10.11 miles in 1:51 and enjoyed every minute of it =)

Luckily, we found my mom right after we crossed the finish line and proceeded over to a green and white striped tent to pick up our medals! (Why anyone would run a race with the option to get a medal and not want one is a foreign concept to me..)

That wasn't the fastest I've run 10 miles but I considerate it a PR anyways since this was my first race at the distance. This was probably my favorite race that we've run so far =)

In other running-related news, I am no longer running the full marathon next month in Cleveland. I'm just not ready for it yet. My dad and I have dropped down to the half in Cleveland and I now have my sights set on the Akron Marathon on September 24. If I hadn't had gotten shin splints then maybe I'd be ready.. Either way, I'm still running a marathon to raise money for diabetes. It just won't be on May 15.