Brew to Shoe review

I am so excited!  This was the first race I did post andrew last year and I knew I could do better this year.   I am a much stronger runner this year and hills don't scare me near as much after I did the hospital hill run.  I had decided I would push the first three miles and then hope I could hang on for the last three and shoot for under an hour time.  I knew weather would play a big part in how i did so I was praying for little to no humidity.  So let's start a few days before.

I had repeats on my schedule.  This is where I commonly do my repeats.  It's in an industrial park and there is little to no traffic.  I can also have stella pretty much off leash and I can't have her at all on the track so I go here a lot.  Mom even did a few with me.  Here is a picture of her during the repeats.   

Bless her heart. She is 66 this year and running and working out is her thing!  You could call her a gym rat for sure.  They don't have many options for running safely outdoors so I have shown her all of my favorite routes this week in hopes she will move to Kansas just so she can run LOL!  I sure had hoped that having repeats and then one day of rest was enough before the race and I think it was.  My legs felt good the entire race. 

Mom decided we would have a date night so Tony and I went to the pasta feed.  The proceeds of the pasta feed benefitted special olympics.  Unfortunately, out of 700 something runners, only 10 signed up for the pasta feed and boy did they miss out.  The pasta came from a local eatery called Coco Bolos that does food that is out of this world.  We got a HUGE plate of a cheesy, chicken pasta with a roll and a beer and or water.  We got to keep the pint glass and coozie, which was a bonus.  I was on the fence about the beer. It is one of my favorite beers, so I had to take a few sips before giving it to my hubby.  Major sad face.  The pasta was very delicious and very filling.  I ate 2/3 of it and then had to tap out.  It immediately gave me indigestion, but I didn't care because it was yummy.  Nothing a little zantac can't fix.  Us and the other 8 people got to sit in an VIP section and watch a concert that was put on at the bandshell in the park.  The band was called Run Boy Run and they were a bluegrass/folksy type of band that we really enjoyed.  If both of us weren't so incredibly tired from andrew getting us all up at 5:30 that morning, we would have enjoyed it so much more.  We ended up coming home close to 10 to try and get some sleep.  Our little angel was already tuckered out which was a good thing.  Thanks grammy!

5:00 came way to early, but I wanted a full 2 hours before the run to digest.  I normally don't eat for 10 Ks but I wanted to try and get my long run eating habit in place just in case it helped.  I really think it did.  Anyway, we had to wake up the rest of the house as well around 5:30 so the hubby could go to work and i could get dropped off at the start line.  My hope was that andrew would go back to sleep in the car and mom could even get a little bit of shut eye before the race ended.   That didn't happen, but that was okay because we all took a four hour nap post race.  It was so much fun seeing all of my local and non local running friends before the race.  Some of them I only see at this race so I really look forward to it.
My game plan was to take advantage of the mostly flat road for the first three miles and really push it and hope I had enough leg for the second three.  There was a smaller hill in the four mile leg and the big three were at mile 5.  According to my watch, I was 9:12, 9:18, and 9:26 with a 28:55 5 K time.  I had locked on to a couple of women who were running at the pace I wanted to go, so I kept repeating to myself my typical pace run mantra, comfortably hard, comfortably hard.  I started seeing 9:30-9:45 from mile 3-4  and I was trying not to let it bother me.  Mile 4 was a 9:37 and after the big hills, I was at a 10:28 for mile 5.  I am not going to get down on myself for the time creeping up.  By the time I hit the hills, I was getting hot and tired.  I had my own water but I was getting water at the water stations and dumping it on my head.  I had stopped taking water because I felt like I was getting a stitch in my side and I had, had problems with those the other night when I was doing intervals and taking in more water than normal.  What I am a little mad about was my mile 6 time of 9:59.  I think I could have done better, but it is what it is.  The last mile was on a very narrow side walk, and I had caught up with the walking five K people.  While most got out of our way, a few didn't and I got stuck a few times.  I also got stuck behind a walker that had a double stroller.  I don't remember this being an issue last year but I am wondering if there would be anyway to have them on a different course or start them much later or have a course for those just wanting to walk.  I also heard several people got caught up having to wait for traffic.  I was lucky in that I was always with a pack and that never happened, but that would have upset me if it did.  I am very happy with my finish time of 59:08, which is a course PR for me and a 10 K PR for me since my last PR pre-andrew was 59:59.  I am ready to tackle my next 10 K in a couple of weeks and try for another PR.  I am not sure I will be under an hour but I think I can do better than my previous course time of 1 hour 4 minutes.   The course has a HUGE hill that is at least half a mile long and my goal is no walking this year on that hill as I had to walk some last year on the up and down.

This year was better organized post race than last year so kudos to all involved.  I got my beer and pizza slice (last year they ran out of both fairly quickly) and strangely at 8 am wanted to eat and drink.  One of my running buddies got third in our age group, so I stayed for awards and the amazing raffle.  You have to love a race that gives out beer mugs as placement prizes.   I didn't win anything in the raffle this year again, but there is always next year.   They had a free bouncy house for the kids and andrew pretty much stayed in it for at least an hour, which is kind of funny considering in april he was terrified of them.  I can't wait till next year and hope we have the amazing weather we had this year.  Chilly at the start and hot at the finish but no humidity.  I also hope they do a better job of advertising the pasta feed.  It was a great deal with yummy food and all for a good cause.   Overall, one of my favorite races and I look forward to shooting for an even better time next year!