Run for Empowerment 10K

My roommate had asked me to run the Run for Empowerment ages ago - it benefits Women Helping Battered Women, which is a great organization that she has worked with in the past. As the date grew closer and closer I still hadn't registered - with the BL race I sort of forgot about it. However, I gathered Emily up and we registered for the 10K - it would be my third and honestly didn't even feel like a big deal - it's only 6.2 miles after all (I can't even imagine what I would have been thinking last year at this time if I even THOUGHT those words)!

The race was to take place on the Burlington waterfront, which is one of the most beautiful places in the world, if you as me. The event started with a kids race which was so adorable - one kid who was about 2 ran the entire thing in a cape and hit a superhero type pose as he approached the finish line. It was fun and brought a smile to my face!

The race was pretty low key, but was chip timed. They had lots of volunteers directing traffic and working at water stations, and they were all very kind! The weather was perfect for a race - about 65 and sunny, but the course was shaded about 70% of the time, which was nice.

Emily and I started running together as we always do, but she took off ahead of me after about a minute. I had brought my phone with me because I knew that would be the case but I couldn't get my LTE to connect to Spotify - frustrating. I figured I'd try again in a mile or 2, but it never did end up working, so I just ran with my arm band on for no reason the whole time. Oh well!

My body felt great the whole race - it was a really flat course and I didn't feel like I was going especially fast, I felt good. I was running in the back 3/4 of the 10K group with a bunch of women wearing matching bootcamp shirts - I think they all train together somewhere and I think some of them were tackling their first races. They were mostly middle aged and none of them appeared especially fit, but most of them were beating me!

The atmosphere of the race was definitely encouraging - I always give Emily a high five if I see her on a course (this was an out and back so we high fived before I got to the turnaround but after she rounded it) but there was lots of encouragement being shared, even by strangers. I wasn't wearing a watch so I had no idea what my time was, but as I approached the last .5 I still had plenty in the tank so I started pushing it a bit. I set my sights on 2 of the bootcamp women and passed them, and then was passed by another middle aged woman who must have been right behind me the entire time...well I wasn't going to be her pacer and then let her beat me! I kept up with her for about 20 seconds and then took off ahead of her, beating all 3 of them with no problem. My eyesight isn't great so I couldn't read the clock, but my sister was shouting "you're going to do it in under 1:04!" as I approached the finish line. I was pleased - would would take 4 minutes off my PR. I happily crossed the finish line, grabbed my bike and then walked up to the Farmer's Market with my family!

Official time of 1:03:15 - a PR by 5 minutes! Awesome!

My roommate Heather and me. Heather ran the 5K for her first race as a "training" runner. She wasn't happy with how it went (she ran with a friend who wasn't much for going her pace) so we're going to do another race later together in the summer so she can have a better experience!