Run to Chocolate 2013

me and Emily after the race

My February race is in the books! My sister, Emily, her boyfriend, Zac and I traveled to Fairfax, VT (about 30 minutes from Burlington) for the 2nd Annual Run to Chocolate. We decided to do it because there aren't many other races in February (and my New Years Resolution was to run a race every month) and because it had chocolate in the title...you can't really go wrong with that!

The race was an out and back along a cute dirt road. Emily and I set a goal to finish in under 20 minutes, which was speedy for us - we typically push 11 minute miles. We started out at a good pace and both felt great - the sun was shining, it wasn't too cold and my legs felt good. Before the race had started we had seen a former high school classmate of mine (we went to a huge high school, she was a year older than me and we definitely weren't even acquaintances...I just knew who she was) who was a very confident athlete in high school...and with about 1/2 mile left we saw her just a little bit ahead of us running up a little hill. Emily and I run some hills in our weekly runs, so the hill wasn't a problem, and Emily got the finish line fever and took off ahead of me. I knew it was too soon for me to speed up, so I just kept going at my pace. Emily passed the girl from high school, and then I set my sights on her. I'm not a very competitive person (actually, I'm absolutely, positively not a competitive person in the slightest), but something came over me and I really wanted to beat her! She was far enough ahead of my that I had to push myself to catch up, and just as I did, she started walking - we were less than 200 yards from the finish line (it was still around the corner) so I kicked it up, passed her and ran to the finish line. YEAH I beat her!

Official finish time for me was 18:49, 1:11 under my goal! I finished in the top half of the pack, which was awesome - usually I'm quite close to the end, and twice I've finished second to last (as I said, I'm not competitive so it really doesn't both me...I just like to finish and say I did it!).

After the race, there was a big chocolate buffet, including homemade treats, a chocolate fountain and hot chocolate. Honestly, post race food is reason enough to take up running!

This is was really fun race - I beat my goal time, beat an athlete from my high school, got to spend time with my sister and Zac AND ate a bunch of chocolate!