Turkey Trot RR

Let me begin this RR with a few background pieces of information:

I belong to a few WL/running forums. 
I'm often super jealous of other's awesome times.
I am lazy. Like lazy to the core, but I manage to workout 5-6 days a week.
I have been 'running', more accurately slogging for 5 yrs. 
I have been trying to improve my times with the godawful interval, sprints and tempo runs. Some of these are good; some are bad, bad, bad.
I've learned that my biggest issue with running is I have a very hard time pushing past my comfort zone. 
I'm often not a fan of racing. Probably because my sucky times are documented. 

Ok, with all that said, I wanted to do a Turkey Trot. A few ladies from my forum were doing one in their cities, and I just can't pass up and opportunity to do what others are doing. So, I signed up for the Sheltering Arms 10k. I was going to do a smaller, local race...but I recently joined a larger running group and a bunch of the girls were doing the SATT. 

I went into the race with a personal goal of 1:15. My first race was a 10k, and my time was 1:20. However, a friend on one of my forums challenged me to do a 1:12. On some level, I knew THAT was not happening, but I had to chase it....

Wednesday evening I did my normal night before a race duties--eat too much junk and fret about why I signed up for this. My internal monologue is usually, "Nichelle, why are you PAYING to slog???"...I am not one of those 'Rah, rah everything is great' racers!

I managed to shut myself up and sleep pretty well.

Thursday morning I woke up before my alarm clock and got dressed. I woke up to a sweet text saying "good luck!" ...I, of course, had to throw in my negative thoughts. But I tried to quiet them down. I've been working on this A LOT. Running is sooo mental.

I get dressed, have my banana and pb, and coffee and head to the race. I jammed some really upbeat songs all the way there.

When I got the Galleria, there was no traffic--yay, but after I parked and walked to the race, I realized just how big a 12,000 participant race was! Holy people.

I was alone at the beginning. This sweet lady helped me do my bib and put my timing chip on my shoes. I went to stand in the corrals and attempted to talk to some people around me, but no one was nice...so i just stood alone until the start.

FINALLY, 7:30 rolled around and we were off--

I knew in order for me to finish strong, I'd have to start strong, so I went out at a pretty fast pace for me. At about .5 mile, I looked down and saw 10:30mm on my garmin. I knew I had to slow it down...so I slowed down  to around an 11mm pace. During this time, I started getting some wicked knee pain. I stopped at the 1 mile marker and tied my shoes tighter. This brought more pain, so at the 2 mile marker, I did a looser tie. Finally at around 2.5 miles the pain let up and I was good.

I was going between a 11:30-12:30 mm. I came up to the 3 mile marker with a 36:xx on my garmin. I was pretty excited thinking that I could make the 1:12 goal. I was coasting along, enjoying the view and run. I even thought "who IS this person" a few times. I never, ever push....but I kept pushing. I got to 5 miles at 1:01. I was pumped, I told myself one.more.mile. However, I looked up and say the 5k WALKERS joining the 10kers. So I spent the last mile bobbing and weaving walkers. I may have said "Stay to the left", "don't get in front of me" a few times. I had a goal to make!!!

I finally got to where I could see the finish and I just dug deep and booked it!!! I have never run that fast-ever! I started getting nauseated, which exhilarated me to go faster. I crossed the finish line at 1:17. The course was a bit long (6.27). I am so proud of myself!

This race was really organized, the weather was perfect, the course was crazy flat...so perfect.

Now I'm on a mission to get that 1:12 :)

Oh, and I never even got a chance to see the other girls! It was just too many people.