B.A.A. 10K Recap

Last race recap for June!  On Sunday, I ran the B.A.A. 10K with S and a few grad school friends.  I'll be honest -- three races in three weeks was a lot for me.  I was definitely NOT excited about this race when I went to bed on Saturday night, and I was even less excited about it when the alarm went off on Sunday morning.  But once I was up and dressed and met the others outside on an absolutely beautiful morning, I started to feel a little better.

I'd only run 5 miles on Saturday, and the weather wasn't supposed to be too horribly hot, so my optimistic goal for this race was to break an hour.  My more realistic goal was to beat last week's 10K time.  I also wanted to focus on keeping my pace fairly constant over the course of the race since I noticed that lately I've been fading hard in races and in my day to day workouts.

This was the first race I've run that didn't have a pre-race packet pickup.  They mailed us our bibs and we were supposed to pick up our race shirts on-site before or after the race.  I'd brought a gear check bag, so I decided to get my shirt before the race since I figured the size options might not be great by the time I crossed the finish line.  I now have three size small adidas B.A.A. shirts, and they're all too big on me, so this time I opted for the extra small.  I really liked the shirt design (especially compared to some of the bright yellow 5K shirts!) and it fits pretty well, but I can barely get my giant head through the tiny neck hole!

Clearly I should be a fashion photographer

The course was mostly a straight out-and-back route along Comm Ave from Boston Common to the Boston University campus.  It turned out to be a sunny, warm, morning so I was really grateful for the shade early and late on the route.

Soure: baa.org

At first I was worried that I would get bored running out-and-back, but watching the runners going the other way turned out to be a great distraction.  I think I picked up the pace a bit when I saw the leaders flying through mile five or six while I was still coming up on the 2 mile marker!  After we turned back onto Comm Ave early in mile 3, I started looking for S coming the other way, which kept me occupied for a while.  I didn't think there would be so many guys in bright orange t-shirts!  Before long I saw him cruising through mile 4 and gave him a little shout out to get his attention.

Having aid stations every mile really broke up the course for me -- I walked through every aid station but ran the rest of the course.  I tried not to run too hard on the first half, slowing it down a bit when I glanced down and saw paces in the 9:00-9:20 range.  At the turnaround, my heel started to hurt.  Bad.  For a minute I thought I might have to walk most of the second half of the race, but before long the pain was manageable and I kept cruising.

I started to get pretty tired in the last mile, and was extremely happy to see the last aid station right after the 9K mark.  I was even happier to see S cheering for me right after the aid station, which gave me the boost I needed to pick up the pace for the last half mile.  S made it across the park to cheer for me one more time in the homestretch, and I crossed the finish line with an official time of 1:00:59.  I was really happy to come in under 1:01, for which S gets all the credit -- I definitely would have taken a few more seconds at that last aid station if I hadn't seen him and gotten my butt in gear!

I was especially happy with my splits -- officially 30:38 for the first 5K, 30:21 for the second 5K.  Definitely didn't fade in this race!

Still getting used to this new nike+ interface ...

I picked up my medal and some very yummy post-race snacks and headed to the Boston Common carousel to meet up with the rest of the group (they all had great races, too!).  The T ride and walk home were pretty painful thanks to my hip and heel, but I made it back in once piece.

Post-race on Boston Common

After a handful of ibuprofen, some time on the couch, and a shower, I was feeling much better.  So we decided to go on a little Sunday afternoon adventure and took Klaus to the SoWa Open Market.  For lunch, we hit up the Bon Me truck in the market's food truck court.  S and I split a three cup chicken sandwich, and each got some "tea deviled eggs" and Thai basil limeade.

Forgot to take a picture of the actual food -- oopsie

After lunch, we wandered around and checked out the market stalls, where I picked up a set of coasters and a trivet for my new apartment.

Who has a bright orange storage trunk coffee table?  This girl!

But the best find of the day was definitely this amazing chocolate chip cookie.  Probably the only cookie I've ever had where the cookie part was just as good as the chocolate chip part!

C is for cookie that's good enough for me!

After SoWa, we went into Harvard Square to pick up an antenna for my awesome new tv and then spent the rest of the day watching tv (Olympic diving trials, Secret Millionaire, and Extreme Makeover: Weightloss Edition, I know you're jealous).  S also made this awesome creamy, cheesy orzo recipe I found on pinterest.  I mixed in some peas, because in my opinion peas make pretty much any kind of pasta better.

I even have placemats because I'm classy like that

And that's it for my exhausting but very fun Sunday!  Time to start thinking about today's recovery three miler ...