ford island bridge 10k

well, i did it again..... i ran another race. this time it was just a 10k (6.2 miles) instead of the 8.1 that i ran for the aloha run. i still didnt really train like most people tend to do when they run races, and so far it seems to be working in my favor. after finishing the aloha run with a good time and having run the whole thing, tonya and i decided that we would try the ford island bridge 10k, and this time we talked josh and our friend ann into it. josh is a runner and was up for the challenge. ann on the other hand took a little bit more arm twisting....even though she did end up mailing in her entry form before us :) but ann didnt go into this totally blind....she walks the loop (our 3.7 mile hilly walk) with us, and for a while we were doing every mon, wed, and fri.....and ann gets more of a work out than we do when we walk. while we all have strollers to push, ann has a double stroller and is pushing 2 kids!!! and she pushes them in a double stroller! and until recently it was not a jogging stroller, but a regular double stroller!!! so we talked her into it..."if you can push that double stroller up and down the hills in the loop, you can do anything" :)

so we met out my house at 5:45ish, dropped little miss and miss k off at a friends house, and the four of us were on our way. this was of course as we all debated about the pouring down rain and the horrible wind, but we were bound and determined (not really) that we were going to do this race. we got to the fields at about 6:15 where it started to rain some more. we decided to stop off at the port-a-potties and then head over to the starting line. as we got over there we found 2 friends, john and katie, who were running the race with 2 little ones in 2 different strollers (brave brave people!). and luckily katie had her camera and was able to take a picture of the 4 of us. josh had taken one earlier, but it just had us 3 ladies :) so now that we had a picture we headed up closer to the start line (strollers had to stay to the back) and waited..... they played the national anthem, set some pink, blue, yellow and other bright colored doves go, and then it was the gun shot! i stayed with ann and tonya for most of the first mile, but them my competitiveness came out and i wanted to take off. they told me to go for it and i was off. miles 1 and 2 werent so bad, i was averaging a little less than 10 minutes a mile and was doing good until part of the way through mile 3...thats when the wind started against us. now, i didnt have my ipod with me, its one of the big ones and i dont have an arm band. so i was singing to myself to keep me going...some killers, some modest mouse, some weezer, and then when i turned the corner and started going against the wind i got the worst song in my head.... "against the wind" by bob seager......and i couldnt get it out, not matter how hard i tried to change songs in my head it just didnt help. i turned out of the wind during part of the 4th mile, but it was short lived and mile 5 was again against the wind (and again the song was there....i dont even own that song!!!!). the fun part really started when it was time to cross back over the ford island bridge (hence the name of the race), this was the beginning of mile 6 and it was not only against the wind, it was also up hill. but i didnt give up and i didnt walk! that was my main goal, to not walk. my other was to beat my mile time from the aloha run, and I did both! once i saw the finish line come into view i took of running and sprinted the last .10 of the race.

i ran the race in 1:01:31. which made my mile time 9.54. by far my best time. i ended up 62 out of 342 for my age group and 1041 out of 2602...not too bad for my first 10k. despite the wind and the rain, the scenery was beautiful, i mean we did run on a tiny island that is in pearl harbor, and it was a good experience and i look forward to running it again next year!