St. Michaels Running Festival

 Today I ran race #10!

My friend and I ran with a group of Rescue Squad members, so we rocked their red t-shirts. I actually didn’t get a photo of it, but someone took a group photo.

What a perfect day for a race! The weather was warm, the sun was shining, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. There were three race choices: 5k, 10k, and half marathon. I chose the 10k option since I knew I was running a 10 mile race the next weekend.

The course was flat and fast. I ran so quickly! I try to run the first mile at a slower pace, but it was almost hard to slow myself down, between the very flat course and the sunshine!

 

My fastest mile was 6:45! That’s some serious speeding for me. Slowest was 9:32, and average pace was around 8:30. I felt great for most of the race!

However, I learned another great race lesson: don’t take the water. During my training runs, I always fuel before and after a run, never during. {This isn’t true for everyone, so definitely gauge your own personal needs if you decide to start race training!} There were three water stations throughout the 6.2 mile course. I flew by the first two, but at the third one, I thought why not?

I grabbed a cup and took a sip before I realized I was drinking Gatorade. I drink watered-down Gatorade post-running to refuel, but can’t drink it before running, since it doesn’t always sit well in my stomach. I ended up with a pretty horrible side stitch for the last .5 miles of the race {but that didn’t stop me! I kept up my 8:30 pace!}. Lesson learned.

There were professional photographers throughout the course snapping photos–I can’t wait to see them! I’ll make sure to share them here.

I heard that 1,500 runners came for the festival. Can’t wait to see the stats overall! The fastest 10k runner was heading to Mile 4 as I headed to Mile 2…so…yeah. Races can be quite humbling. It’s great motivation to train harder and go faster.

After the race, my friend and I headed to Easton for some post-race coffee and we spontaneously decided to pop by the Easton Farmer’s Market!

Um…three cheers for the best sign.

The girl who made this sign LOVED that I took a photo. She said she was waiting all morning for someone to understand the reference!