Sunday mornings are my favorite time of the whole week. The laziness, coffee, laundry and the home repair shows on TLC always makes me happy that it is Sunday. Yesterday was even better because when I woke up I knew I still had one more day off from work to be lazy, drink coffee and do laundry, love long weekends!
I saved all my laziness for today as I participated in the Carnaval 8k & 5k run out on Virginia Key yesterday. I ran the 8K, which is a totally random distance, but I think it is because this race use to take place on a Friday night on Calle Ocho in Little Havana. Now they have changed it to Sunday morning on Virginia Key… weird, but I’ll go with it since the race started and ended at the beach!
My plan for this race was to run as hard as I could for as long as I could. I am usually the “take it easy” girl when it comes to race strategy, but lately I have been amazed at the progress my running has made, so I am loving being able to push myself. Half-way through the race I was two and a half minutes ahead of my usual pace… “whoa!”… yea I know, I thought the same thing too. I was really happy with this and ended up finishing the race 39 seconds ahead of my goal time. A good day on the road for sure!
The last mile was tough, but overall I had minimal soreness in my legs and I felt really strong. This race has put me in a great frame of mind for THIS Sunday’s Princess half marathon – so excited! I need to make sure these little details are in my blog, so next week after the Princess half when my running motivation totally plummets I can re-read this, and hopefully it will keep me going and build on what I have already accomplished :)
During the run there was a moment that made me think “running is awesome”. It was when I was heading over a bridge running hard, pumping the arms, but then there is that moment when you reach the top of the bridge, the road evens out, your arms relax and fall to your side and then you cruise down the other side – awesome!
There was no finisher’s medal for this race but they did have free beer and arroz con pollo… Bienvenido a Miami folks. Who cares if it was only 9am and I was enjoying a Sam Adams! I was at the beach after a great run, my toes in the sand, enjoying the beautiful day. Sunday mornings are the best…
Congrats on beating your time! That's awesome. Jealous of your beer and the sand! Florida has a lot more fun races then Boston!
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