I DID IT!

If you've been following my blog lately, you know that today was the Reindeer Romp 8K in the Brown County State Park. I woke up pretty nervous because I knew I had to be the overall female winner in this race in order to be the overall female winner of the 2009 Magnificent 7 Race Series. That's a lot of pressure...and I haven't been in a major pressure situation in quite a while so I wasn't really sure how I would handle it.

Well, I am proud to report that I WON the race today and therefore won the overall Mag 7 Series for 2009! Guess what my margin of victory was? ONE POINT. That shows you just how tight the competition was. The last time I checked, there were 418 women who earned points in the Mag 7 Series this year, so I'm pretty darn proud to come in first out of all of those people for the series.

Today's race was more perfect than I could have ever imagined. The weather was ideal (in my opinion). Sunny and 30 degrees. Perfect. I love running in the cold! My goal was to go out conservatively with a 7:20 first mile, but much to my surprise I hit the 1 mile mark in 6:44. YIKES, did I go out to fast? I felt good so I thought, "Just go with it." Here's a little rundown of each mile to follow:

Mile 2: 6:56. I slowed it down a tad to make sure I didn't completely wear myself out. At this point I was in first place for the females, after passing another female at mile 1.

**At 2.5 miles we turned around (it was an out-and-back course). This gave me a chance to see where everyone else was in the race. Much to my surprise, the #2 female was pretty close, and #3 seemed to have a lot of energy (she cheerily yelled at me, "Way to go number one female! Keep it up!" I wondered how she had the energy to yell that out and it worried me.) SO, knowing that two women were within striking distance, I thought, "I'm just going to pick it up." It was an amazing thing. Normally I am tired and have trouble finding the energy to pick it up that far into a race, but today my mental toughness was my real strength. All I could think about was winning the series and I certainly didn't want someone catching up and taking that away.

Mile 3: 6:32. Wow, that was fast. I think what helped me on this mile was definitely the surge I put in after I saw how close the other ladies were to me, and since I was running the second half of the mile passing by all of the people behind me who hadn't reached the turn-around point yet, I received a lot of encouragement from most of the other runners, who would say things like, "Way to go, number one female!" or "First girl! Good job!" That encouragement just made it easier to pick up my pace and run hard.

**Side note - had I been running a 5K today, I would have PR'd with a time under 21 minutes. Wow.

Mile 4: 6:54. I can't lie, this was a fairly tough mile, but I just kept pushing it and then when I saw that I had one mile to go, I went into a crazy mental state and realized I was just one mile away from winning the Mag 7 Series. I picked it up!!!

Mile 5: 6:29. (To be honest, this is really 0.97 of a mile...an 8K is 4.97 miles, so "Mile 5" is three hundredths shy of a full mile). My stomach was turning circles and I really wanted to throw up, but I maintained a strong pace all the way to the finish. I saw Karl walking back from the finish line with two of our friends, Justin and Travis, and I managed to grumble out, "Anyone behind me?" Karl said, "Just keep it up and run hard to the finish!" I grunted again, "ANYONE BEHIND ME?!" and he said, "No but don't stop now, go hard to the finish!" and then he ran about the last 100 meters with me to the finish line.

I never looked back to see how close the other ladies were, which was a good thing for me. Sometimes I do this in races and end up psyching myself out if I see someone close. I didn't look back once during this race, and even though I wanted to soooo badly I resisted. I'm not sure what the time was for the second place female, but I ended up running a personal best record of 33:38, which equates to a 6:45 per mile pace. HOLY COW, that's about 15 seconds faster per mile than I have been running most of my 5K's lately! I was unbelievably happy at the end, even though I was doubled over catching my breath.

I must say I'm happier with this race than any of the other races I've run all season, simply because I was "in it" mentally the entire way and didn't let my mind get in the way to defeat me. I was in a zone that I've only been in a few other times in my life and it felt wonderful.

As for Karl, he ran AWESOME as well!!! He finished in 30:16, which was a 6:05 overall pace, and he placed second in his age group. He ran with our friend Justin most of the way, who really pushed him.

I feel a huge sense of both accomplishment and relief. I've been thinking about this race every single day for the past two weeks and I am so glad that it's over and it was a success. Now I've got the winter off from racing, but I'll still be training to get ready for the 2010 Mag 7 Series! :)

Karl and me with some of our running friends: Karl, Justin, Travis, me, and Mandy.


Karl and his mom, Kay, who came out to cheer us on!