Galloway Gallop 10K Race Report

Ah, the 10K that almost wasn’t.
The race started at 8:00. My alarm was set for 6:40. My alarm went off, but by the time I consciously realized that it was going off, and that I must have hit snooze a few times without comprehending what I was doing, it was 7:34. CRAP!!
Any later and I definitely would not have made the race. Thankfully the race was nearby and I’d laid out my clothes last night so they were ready to go. I threw them on, slapped my contacts in my eyes, shoved my shoes on my feet and literally ran out the door. I pulled into the parking lot at 7:54 and as I ran towards the starting line, I heard my name being called over the loudspeaker. “Sarah G, please come to the starting line, Sarah G, where are you?” (I was being paged because Debbie had picked up my packet yesterday, and thus had my bib.)
I knew tons of people at this race, so hopefully everyone got a good laugh out of that!
I got my bib pinned on and in line with 2 minutes to go. Suddenly, I was running, and yet my heart was already beating a million times a minute. The adrenaline was flowing, I was stressed out and relieved at the same time, and when I hit the first mile marker, I looked down to see 9:26.
Oh. Jeez.
I did not plan to set a new PR today, and I didn’t. After that first mile, I slowed it down a bit and just ran comfortably hard for the rest of the race. Remaining splits were 10:23, 10:45, 11:01, 10:42, 10:47, and 2:06 for the last 0.2 miles. I took four walk breaks, each at a water stop, and mile 4 was slow mainly because I took a longer break while I waited for my tri friend Cathy to catch up. She’d been running only a couple hundred feet behind me. We ran for a bit before she took another walk break while I kept going. I think she was right on my tail at the end, finishing within seconds of me.
Finish time was 1:05:12 by my watch, a bit later according to the gun. Last night I was hoping to finish in the 1:04-1:05 range, so I’m satisfied. The weather was a lot warmer today than it was at the Mardi Gras Race where I PRed last weekend, and I was dehydrated from the start. Because I woke up so late, I didn’t get to eat anything before running, or drink anything. As soon as the race began, I was thirsty.
All in all, it was a good run, though I wish I’d had more time to socialize! I arrived at the last minute, and had to leave shortly after finishing to get back home and showered in time to go flying with Jose!