The year 2010 is upon us and I’m excited for what it has to bring! Of course, it didn’t exactly start out on the right foot….Let’s back up to about  2AM in the morning when I was awoken by my boyfriend banging around and causing a raucus and my subsequent insomnia. Turns out our heater was leaking…BAD! Like, gallons of water was leaking out and all the banging around my boyfriend was doing was his attempt at cutting the tops of gallon jugs to catch all this water.  This water was also leaking through the ceiling an pooling in the kitchen. Perfect.  Fortunately our landlord was about to call a plumber ASAP and the problem was fixed with a screwdriver in about 5 minutes. So, that was a relief, because I really wanted my boyfriend to come to my 5k race today which leads to the other way I rang in the New Year…

There was a local 5k being held and I was excited for the opportunity to set a new PR.  The course was hilly, but since this is New England and I eat hills for breakfast, I wasn’t too concerned.  This race was great! Everyone was so friendly and welcoming and it was a great atmosphrere to be in to get myself prepared for the marathon. I finished in 23:46 which was awesome because my goal was to finish in 25:00 or less! My average pace was 7:40 too!!! Plus, I was awarded a sweet medal decorated like a cookie for being 1st female in my age group. I enjoyed the experience too because it made me feel a bit more a part of the community. I only ended up in the area for college since I’m sticking aroung post-graduation, its nice to feel like I’m resident instead of college trasplant.  Here are some pics for the race:

So, this race taught me a few things to prepare me for the marathon:

1. EAT! I’m used to waking up eating a piece of fruit and then running. If its a long run over an hour, I bring some dried fruit and everything is hunkydory. With this race, and with the marathon, I have a huge window of time between wake-up and the race, meaning I need to eat enough food during that time to sustain me. I was unsure about how much I should eat before the race, therefore I ate less than I needed and was hungry the whole run.

2. Don’t be self-consious. This was should hopefully work out on its own as I continue to race more.

3. Buy new running tights even though they are expensive and I am broke or wear shorts with my tights. My running tights are see through. I learned this today when I was flipping through the pictures my boyfriend took. You can clearly see my butt…and the wedgie I had as I crossed the finish line.

4. I totally ROCK uphills! This is my strength and I need to own it!

Well, I hope everyone else was happy with their first day of 2010!

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