#i was on 5/8s for awhile but the idea of having to go to that place 5 times a week was evilling my brain

[pierogipete]

benefit of working 4 days 10 hrs is on my day off i can make spongebob mac and cheese at nine am while my coworkers (5/8'ers) are working

[blackcoffeeandblankpagess]

Tar Heel 10 Miler Race Recap Pre-race: Woke up at 6:15 naturally and got ready. The race didn't start until 7:45 and the starting line was a 5 minute walk from my dorm so there wasn't any rush. Ate half a clif bar, drank some water, out the door. Ran into a friend from my floor on my way out of my building who was also running it. We talked for a few and then split up so I could meet up with my marathon club people. It was nice to see everyone but also kinda weird since I haven't been to practice basically this entire semester due to injury/I have class at night 3 days a week aka the same time as practice. Miles 1&2: Started out way too fast and ran sub-8s which wouldn't have been a big deal a few months ago but was definitely a bad idea today. It's much harder to slow it down when everyone around you is moving fast. Also tried to start listening to S-Town but wasn't getting into it, probably because too much was happening for me to really devote attention to it. Mile 3: Realized I was fucked. Decided I definitely needed to try to slow it down or the next 7 miles were going to be looooooong. Also switched to the Runner's World podcast which was a much better idea. Miles 4-8: Not much to say here. Just kept pushing on. Mile 8.5: About a mile before this I started to feel like I had to go to the bathroom and given my previous history with races and this feeling (re: shitting my pants during my first half marathon) I decided to look for a porta potty. I wasn't running this race to break records, just to run 10 miles so I was okay with pausing for a few seconds even if that would mess up my "official" time. Mile 8.5-9.5: Laurel. Hill. If you are someone familiar to chapel hill (hi @musingsoflulu) you know this hill suuuucks. Again, in the fall I could run it no problem and was killing it, hills are actually one of my strengths, but today it was just not happening. I did something I never do (and never need to do) in a race and I walked. It was really brief, probably 15 seconds total, but I was okay with it. I went out there with the goal of doing the best I could and I knew in that brief moment walking was the best that I could do. That's okay. Also- just to give you guys an idea of how impressive this hill is they literally set up a separate split for the mile that the hill encompasses and give out awards for just that portion of the race because getting up it fast is so impressive. Mile 9.5-10 Finished it out. Felt strong. Glad it was over. All in all it was tough. My pace was forty seconds slower than what I ran my (second) half at in the fall and at the time that felt easy whereas in this race I was feeling it. I kept thinking of what laura (you're getting a lot of shoutouts in this post) said in response to a question yesterday about getting back into running post injury "be easy on yourself and bask in the wonder of running again for the first time in awhile." I was out there and I was running. That is good enough.