Dead Last

Race weekend, here in CCville. My first 10K of the year and, in fact, my first race since my half last year. I knew given the circumstances I wouldn't be fast.

But I wasn't psychologically prepared for dead last. 

Here's how it unfolded. 

Jim signed up to do the 5K earlier this spring. You might remember me saying he was going to do the Couch to 5K training program and I was going to be head-cheerleader-slash-motivating-coach-slash-trying-to-grow-my-own-running-partner-supporting-wife. 

And his C25K training lasted approximately 3 weeks. 

But he insisted he was still going to attempt it on race day. So we went. 

The plan was to run as far and as hard as he could, walk to gather up steam, then run again. You know, intervals. At the 5K turnaround, I was going to bid him adieu and continue walking the whole 10K route. 

The 10K group left the starting gate first and I let them go. A few minutes later, the 5K group took off with Jim and I in the back. 

I could tell right away that it was going to be a painful running day. We probably ran half of the 1.55 miles to the turnaround. With a quick kiss, he was gone and I decided to see if I could run to the 10K turnaround, another 1.55 miles. 

It was miserable. My lungs were good, my brain was good. My knee was not. 

I powered through to the turnaround,  trying to keep from crying with every step. Then I walked for a bit. And when a few people started to pass me, I couldn't take it any more and ran again. 

But by then, I was really far behind. As I rounded the corner to the finish line, I could see that they were already giving out awards to the fast people. Wah wah wah. 

I checked the results last night. 

I was dead last in my age group. It took me 1:06 to go 6.2 miles. I'm capable of 54-56 minutes in a normal training run. I would normally hope for faster in a race.

Dead last is not my favorite thing. It pisses me off. It makes me sad. 

And it reminds me that I still did it faster than everyone on the couch.