Who runs the world...GIRLS

This weekend I ran another little local race, Skip Matthews 4 mile annual run.  The run raises money for our local cancer center and brain cancer research.  It was my second time running it, and I already look forward to running it again next father's day.

Like last year, I ran the race with BFFAE (and evah!).  Last year Laura and I ran the race and ran it at our own (slow-ass) paces.  It as a really tough race for us because I was just starting out and Laura is more of a Jazzercize type of gal.  I think my time was about 38:55 last year.  I remember thinking it was really hard and unenjoyable.

This year Laura and I met up with another old friend, Leah, who is a runner extraordenare.  We did a quick warm up (and a few quick emergency bathroom trips) and then we were off.  Laura's goal was to stick with me, my goal was to go faster than last year, but to not really push myself too much (too tired).  Leah's goal was to...leave us in the dust.  Homegirl is fast.  I saw her take off right away, and did not see her again until I crossed the finish line.

Laura and I stuck together like glue.  It was great looking over and seeing her there.  We were slowly picking off runners in front of us, and throughout we had a pretty good pace.  At about .5 miles in, I was passed by this Amazonian woman pushing a stroller with two friends.  She stayed within a few yards of us the whole time, and I used her as my pacer.  She was always just right in front of me, chatting with her kid and her friends (what the actual fuck?  I can't chat with my friends period when I am running, let alone pushing 40 lbs of extra weight.  Show off.)  I did pass her going up the one hill (which I remember being a lot more brutal last year--yay improvement) and she passed me about 3/4 of a mile later.  

I was pretty tired and though I knew I could have pushed myself harder, I was glad I didn't. I was clearly working hard and had I pushed myself more I would have been pretty miserable for the entire four miles.  But for the last mile I did kick it up a notch, and for the last half mile I really kicked it up.  I think my pace for the last half mile was close to 8:30, which is fast for me.

Just at the four mile mark, a couple of hundred yards before the end of the race, my amazonian, child pushing, friend chatting pacer was still right in front of me and I decided "FUCK YOU, IM GONNA PASS YOUR ASS."

And I did. 

Laura and I finished right next to each other, I think our time was right around 37 minutes, but I didn't really look closely and there were no race chips. I did PR by about a minute and a half, and Laura PRd by about 4 minutes!  Leah of course had finished about 6 minutes before us (with no sweat to be seen) :)