Yesterday, I ran in the Great Race 10k and set a new record! Sidenote: is it a PR if you’ve never raced that distance before? I’ve run 5-milers, half-marathons and marathons, but I’ve never rank in a 10k or 5k, until yesterday. Either way, it’s still a new record.

My friend Jen and I headed downtown to park the car and waited in a long line for the bus to the start. Like Abby, I had a lot of the same complaints about the race. The $2 shuttle fee was collected by a random guy with a plastic bag. It was so sketch and we weren’t even 100% sure we didn’t give our money to someone not even affiliated with the race that we actually took a cell phone picture of the guy in case they didn’t let us on the bus. Great Race, please make sure all your volunteers wear some sort of identifying t-shirt or badge next year.

Finally, we got to the start and really needed to use the facilities. Unfortunately, the line for the porta-pottys was long-long-long, so we decided to use the wooded area in the cemetery across the street to take care of business. We weren’t the only ones, but seriously there should have been more at the start line for a race with 7,000 people.

And for the race, I didn’t even have a goal time. My last five mile race was a good year or two ago and my best time was around 55 minutes. While waiting for the start, I said I want to finish in 1:10. Well folks, I finished in 1:04! After three years of off and on running, I’m finally starting to understand how to get faster. Because really, when you go from not being a runner to a runner, there are only two speeds: running and not running.

I was feeling a little down and out about my training and starting to have some serious doubts about being ready for the marathon, but this race totally revitalized me.

We planned to run 14-miles post race so we could get in a 20-miler. Uhh, that did not happen. We should have done our 20 on Saturday and then the 10k on Sunday. That was our first mistake. Our second mistake was leaving downtown to head to the trail where we usually run. Traveling took a good 30 minutes and we realized we are so bored with the scenery there. We should have just kept running downtown. We got about six miles in, three of which were walking since I was so tuckered out.

This weekend is the Hershey Half Marathon and I’m hoping to set a new half PR while I am there. The half is my favorite distance, so I’m excited for this mini road trip and chocolate!