We Did It!!

Well, it wasn\’t pretty, but Nate and I finished the Cherry Blossom 10 miler this morning and we survived to tell the tale! After an exhausting list of unfortunate events, I\’m glad this race is finally behind us and we can all continue to recover.

At the beginning of this week, I was seriously beginning to doubt that I would be able to do this race. With my foot injury, I wasn\’t able to train as well as I had wanted to, plus I had come down with bronchitis the week before this weekend, really putting a damper on any last minute training. Even a few days before the race I wasn\’t able to handle doing much more than walking without falling into a coughing fit. I was also really worried about Nate finishing it because of his shoulder, and he had gotten the flu the week before, so we were both sick and falling apart! But I sat down and talked with Nate Thursday evening, and we decided we were going to still go out there and run it for my parents who couldn\’t make it out here. Even if we were unable to finish, it was better to get out and try then to not go out at all.

Well, this morning came quickly and at 5:30 AM we were out the door and headed to the race. It was a gorgeous morning with no wind, lots of cloud cover, and it was already 50 degrees that early in the morning. Much better than last year when it was 25 degrees!

I told Nate I wanted to start slow and see how I felt as I got going, and he stayed with me for a ways, but I told him if he wanted to go faster that I didn\’t mind if he wanted to take off. I must have been going REAL slow, because he took off and I lost him before we even hit the 5K mark! I also had to stop and use the restroom around this time so I didn\’t blame him for taking off without me! 😛

I kept up a nice, slow pace for most of the race and just enjoyed people watching and admiring the beautiful cherry blossoms. I was feeling pretty good until I hit mile seven, and then I hit a wall. My coughing was pretty good the whole race, not really bothering me much; but everything below the waist felt like it was on fire. My foot started to hurt real bad, and I was starting to have troubles picking up my feet by the end. I tripped over my own feet a couple of times, but luckily never completely wiped out. I hit mile nine and picked it up a notch just because I never wanted to stop running so badly in my life – the faster I went the faster I could stop!!

I ended up crossing the finish line at 1:47:33, which was only 8 minutes slower than I ran it last year! I expected it to be slower than last year since I hadn\’t trained as well, so I am actually pretty proud of myself that I did this well. I overcame quite a few obstacles to run this race so I can\’t complain at all about that time. I\’m just glad I was able to finish and I still beat 2 hours! Nate only beat me by about 4 minutes, so I must not have been as far behind him as I thought 🙂

Overall, it was a great morning for the race, and Nate and I had a wonderful time running it. I\’m still pretty bummed that my parents couldn\’t have made it, but my dad is on the mend and maybe next year we can try again and have the whole team with us!

Until Next Time!

Megan Reiffenberger