Good morning!
I had such a fun weekend – on Friday, Matt took me out to a nice dinner for my birthday and we had a low key, relaxing night at home. On Saturday morning, we ran the Clarendon Day 10k, followed by my bachelorette wine tour and after party bday BBQ! It was such a blast. I’ll share more details about Saturday afternoon tomorrow – for now, a recap of the Clarendon Day 10k!
Matt, my college friend Sarah, and I all ran the race together. I actually ran this race previously back in 2009 with Sarah and our friend Ashley – it was my very first 10k! I was excited to do it again. 
Matt’s parents gave me a gift card to Lululemon for my birthday, and I cashed it in pretty much immediately on Friday to get this adorable ruffled running skirt! Theodora has one of these and I’ve been obsessed with it for years. It was REALLY comfortable – definitely a win! The blue shirt is from Under Armour and was one of Matt’s birthday gifts to me, as were the pink socks. I’m pretty sure wearing a cute new birthday outfit helped me to run faster. 
Anyway! We all lined up at the start just before 9 a.m. It was nice to do a smaller race – I’m so used to half marathons and massive 10 milers at this point that even though this race was big for a local race, it still felt small to me!
And then we were off! The three of us started together and kicked it into high gear. Sokphal was watching the race and got this awesome photo of us running by her in the first mile! Thanks for the photo, girl!
The first 1.5 miles of the race course were essentially downhill – AWESOME.
- Mile 1: 7:36
- Mile 2: 7:13 (!)
By the time we hit mile 2, Matt had left us in the dust – he killed this race – I was so proud! I’ll share his total stats at the end.
The next part of the race was a long stretch on the highway. Less than thrilling, but mostly flat with only some slight uphills, so that was nice. We tried to keep around an 8 minute mile pace since our goal was to break 50 minutes and that’s pretty much exactly 8 minute miles. Luckily our speedy downhill at the start had given us some cushion!
- Mile 3: 7:44
- Mile 4: 8:17
Hello, turnaround!
And back we went. Sarah and I were both starting to feel tired by mile 5 but pushed each other to stick with it. We were right on track to make new PRs (personal records)!
- Mile 5: 8:09
- Mile 6: 8:22 (is this over yet?!)
Dear Sarah – Why do you look so adorable in this photo and I look like a hot mess?
The final bit of the race was uphill (lame!) and involved turns so we kept waiting and hoping to see the finish line. Where was it, dangit?!?! Finally, we turned a corner and there it was. We saw the clock said something like 49:40 – we knew we had about a 10 or 15 second cushion because we didn’t cross the start line exactly when the clock started, but still! Sarah yelled “COME ON!!!” and we sprinted towards it. Success!!
- 0.2 mile nubbin pace: 7:57
Our official clock time was 49:43 – an average pace of exactly 8 minutes/mile! We broke 50 minutes and set new PRs. Hooray!! In my new age group of 30 to 39 year old females, I finished 17th out of 256 people. Woohoo! Even cooler? Thanks to the internet, I see that when I ran this race in 2009 I finished in 55:29, which is an 8:55 min/mile pace. How’s that for improvement?! 
Matt finished in a killer 47:14, with an average pace of 7:37! So proud of him!!!
Smiles all around. Awesome race with great company!
Did anyone else race this weekend? How’d it go?