If you ask me to run with you, I will most like say YES, no matter what kind of race it is.

Well, except maybe The Color Run.

Not to knock anyone’s fav race, but I always thought The Color Run was kind of dumb. I didn’t quite get the fun of having people throw paint on you during a race. Why not just run? There just didn’t seem like there was a point to it.

However, I am the one that did a Tough Mudder, so I can’t really talk about rationality when it comes to races.

#throwbackthursday  HA

When my friend asked me if I wanted to run her first 5K with her in October, I said YES!

This is funny.

I signed up, typed my cool post about it. All set.

Here is that post:

*****

An added bonus: it’s a Cosmic Run.

This is awesome because:

• It’s at night, so you run in the dark
• There is “fluorescent glowing light technology” and “pulsing dance music”
• It’s a fun run

I never got to do the Vampire 5K because it was cancelled, so this will be my fun run of the season!

*****

All done with my post, I looked at the website one last time, and to my dismay, found that I needed to scroll down a bit more in the ABOUT section.

“Become the canvas as you get showered with thousands of pounds of vividly-glowing and brilliantly-soft fluorescent color powders.”

Mother effer. It’s like The Color Run on crack.

But…the more I thought about it, I realized that the point of fun runs like these is that there is no point to them. The silliness takes away the nerves and the doubt surrounding races, and leaves more room for giggling and gaining confidence in your running self.

(source)

Maybe this is exactly the kind of race I need.

Thanks for asking me to sign up, Mags!

Not having a challenging race to train for can be nice sometimes. It means I don’t have to stress about a long run over the weekend or force myself to go to the gym when I’m really not feelin’ it. It is rather quite liberating to decide how far I feel like running during a run.

But it can also be kind of boring. Lately I’ve just been doing shorter runs a few times a week whenever I’m in the mood to.

The only problem from this is that my fitness level has suffered without having a specific race to train for. Back when I was training for the Tough Mudder last year, there wasn’t ever a question if I should skip my workout or sit my ass on the couch. I HAD to get the workout in so that my body would be properly prepared to handle the race.

After I finished the Shamrock Half in March, I knew I wanted to run another half marathon. I definitely want to do a bunch of half marathons before I even think about running a full marathon.

I am also huge brat and will not train for a longer race when I have to do long runs when it is super hot outside. Same thing goes for the cold. Therefore, I needed to find a half to do sometime in late October or November.

Originally, I was considering running the Richmond Half Marathon, but after some thought I decided I wanted to do a half closer to home. And though Richmond is supposed to be a really good race, I also liked the idea of seeing how smaller, more intimate races are.

So, I’m doing this in November:

(source)

Don’t get too excited – I’m doing the half, not the full.

Other bonuses about this race: it’s insanely flat and is even on some of the paths that I normally run on.

I’m really excited to do a longer race on my “home turf.”

See ya later, gotta go start making highlighted training charts in my moleskine.

Are you signed up for any goal races?

What is your favorite season to do races in?

I went to bed Saturday night fearing Sunday morning’s weather.

But when I moseyed on over to the metro, it wasn’t too bad out!

I was a little nervous about getting to the race in time to pick-up my packet because my bffls running had already picked theirs up. I severely regretted my procrastination until…

I ran into this girl at the t-shirt table!

The other girls were quite jeal that I got to meet Sweaty Emily.

Luckily, they still let me take race pictures with them.

We spent the next half hour doing important pre-race things, like using the power of the raised arm to get our effing location

And we got ready to run.

My race was pretty standard! I think I’m finally getting used to races. Perhaps knowing that my Garmin keeps track of pace helps.

As I keep learning about distance running, I’m having fun just running races. Just running the distance is still an accomplishment to me! Though I know it’s also my own fault for not pushing myself to be faster, so perhaps that time is coming soon.

The beginning and the end of the race had good scenery, through the pretty streets of Capitol Hill. Then the course took us toward the highway views near RFK stadium.

My favorite part of races is when the super crazy fast people are running back and you can see them and cheer them on! Some of those peeps run fast.

The low part of the race for me was slowly making the loop around RFK. It started to rain and running in the parking lot kind of sucked.

I didn’t think the one hill was too bad, but maybe that’s because I ran so slowly up it. 😉 My friends all had good races too – they are so speedy!

And then we snuck back to the t-shirt table.

We survived the [light] rain and had a fun Sunday morning running the Capitol Hill 10K.

Time: 1:09:43.

Hey, guy behind us – cool hat.