This is the race report for a 10k I ran on Sunday, I’ve been meaning to write this for some time now but I’ve been extremely busy lately. Here it goes:

I woke up at 5am to start my race-day routine, but my stomach seemed upset at being up so early, I was nauseous and feeling dizzy. I tried to ignore it and started drinking my coffee. This made it worse, to the point that I had to throw up. It never crossed my mind to go back to bed, I just thought I had to drink extra water to get hydrated and kept getting ready for the race.

I got in the car around 6:15, the race was near my house and started at 7. I thought I had more than enough time to get there, get my chip, warm up and all the usual. My stomach was better by now and I was feeling optimist about the race. Until I got stuck in traffic. Terrible-not-advancing-an-inch traffic, the kind I would expect on a weekday at rush hour, not on a Sunday morning!!! I had nowhere to go, I could see the entrance to the parking lot ahead of me, I could see the starting line, but I couldn’t get there!!

At 6:55 I finally was going to enter the parking lot, it was late, but if I hurried I could get my chip in time. Wrong! As I was going to enter the parking lot a guy comes and tells me that it was full, I had to find somewhere else to park!!

I managed to find a spot 2 blocks from there, parked and ran like hell to pick up my chip (this was my warm up). After that I needed to go to a porta-pottie quick stop for #1. I found one (at least there wasn’t a line) and as I got in I could see the people running around the corner, the race had started!! After doing my business as fast as possible I went as fast as possible to the start line. I was one of the last people to cross it, along with an old lady with her golden retriever and 2 ladies pushing strollers. Everyone else was ahead of me!!!

My heart rate was at 166 bpm, too high for what I had planned at this point in the race. I turned my iPod really loud and started to pass people. It was terrible in the beginning, it was sooo crowded!! After this most of the race is a blur in my mind. I spend the whole race picking someone ahead of me that looked fast and going after him, passing him and then picking someone else… I did this until I crossed the finish line.

I remember that my time at the 3k mark was 13:xx and then at the 5k mark it was 23:29. After the 5k there was a steep never-ending hill, I went as fast as I could, but could barely maintain an 8:50 min/mile pace through it. But after you climb a big hill, you have to go down… I averaged a 6:58 pace for the next 1.5k!

I had run this route last year, it was my first race ever and I finished it in 53:33. This year I did a lot better:
General Position: 542 / 2785
Position in male group: 484 / 1881
Position in Age group (20 – 29): 52 / 317

And, my finish time: 47:15 Which is, of course, a new PR!! Finally I can run 10k in less than 50 mins!!! Next goal: Sub-45.

I have mentioned a couple of times already that my nutrition is a mess, I know I am supposed to eat healthy and balanced, but the truth is I have no idea what that is and how to do it. It’s not that I want to loose a lot of weight, of course I wouldn’t mind burning some fat, what I want is to feel healthy and have enough energy when I workout without feeling guilty because I ate too much.

Because of this I went to see a nutritionist last week to get some help and guidance on the issue. She gave me a new diet, which I thought was crazy, according to it I should be eating around 1600 calories everyday, which I thought was waaaay too low for all the running, biking and weight training that I’ve been doing (no swimming yet… haven’t been able to find somewhere to swim!). The diet consist of 6 meals a day with really small portions on each meal and is a lot more balanced that what I was eating before (lots of vegetables).  At first I hated it, I was hungry all the time and the first day when I saw the size of my lunch I wanted to call the nutritionist and yell ‘Are kidding me?!?!? I’m going to starve with this!!!’. But after a few days I got used to to it, I started to enjoy eating small portions and eating all the time, which is what eating 6 time a day really is, you eat once a day… the whole day…

The best part (besides the 3 punds I’ve lost so far without being extra-tired during my workouts) is that I’m also learning to cook. Cooking is fun, I’ve always liked doing it (what I hate is cleaning the mess after!), but I never really knew much about it, but now that’s changing and I’m learning some really cool recipes!

On another news… I had scheduled a 9 mile run and a hills workout for last week, I didn’t have the time to do the hills so I decided to do a long run with hills, something like what emily did, and I came to the exact same conclusion as her: It is NOT a good idea. Period. I won’t say anything else. Just don’t do it. Besides that painful day training has been great.

To finish this off, I signed up for a 10k race on the 26th, I did the same race last year   (it was my first 10k ever). It’s a hilly route and I finished it in 53 minutes last year, it’s time to break that time!!