Seattle St. Pat’s Dash is in the books!
Official race time for the 3.8-mile course was 41:45, or 10:59 splits – my fastest to date! I’d never run this far before, my closest being a 3.6 miler in just over 43 minutes last weekend. I was nervous about this course since it’s got a long, uphill grade, but guess who huffed her way up that hill no problems? That’s right, this girl!
My goal was to make it under 45 minutes, and having finished this race with energy to spare, I’m excited to start setting faster time goals for myself in the future.
The race itself wasn’t nearly as difficult as I worried it would be. Hills are so tough mentally, but in this case the rush of the green-clad crowd pushed me through. Just past mile 3 I experienced a weird, sharp pain on my inner left knee. It quickly became really tight and uncomfortable. I didn’t want to slow down – I had less than a mile to go and was still cookin’ with gas! – but the pain intensified so I slowed to a weird skip/powerwalk/march move that probably made it appear I’d already started in on the Guinness. After a few minutes of alternating between that and running, my knee seemed to relax and I was able to pick up my speed through the finish line. Having to slow down was frustrating, but I think it was smart to listen to my body. I still worked hard to cross that finish line, soaked to the bone in raindrops but a woman improved nonetheless.
Six months ago I weighed 225 pounds and couldn’t run a mile. I was clocking 16-minute miles in January, not even three months ago. I was thinking about these things while walking home, when I passed a handful of guys on a street corner. They were smoking cigarettes and watching the traffic lights turn. One noticed my race bib and asked, “Didja win?”
Why yes. Yes I did.
