heart center of the rockies run

grumpy. that's me in the morning. i can try not to be, but i usually don't succeed. my daughter asked me why i was taking a photo of myself this morning "when your so grumpy and tired"? i guess i just wanted to remember how awful i feel before an event, it's normal, it's natural and yet i can press through it. we left at about 7am ( i am usually still sleeping soundly during this time of the day...i know, lucky me.) so i dragged myself out of bed and waited for my sister in law to come pick me up. we drove north to fort collins watching the sun rise to our right. it was nice.
it was also cold. frost on the ground, about 28 degrees. when we arrived we checked in, got our number and quickly walked back to the car to warm up. we had about 20 minutes before the start so we just hung out and gave ourselves pep talks. i, for one, have never (NEVER) ran more than 4 miles and i have only run 4 miles a couple times. last year was my first 5k right here the runners roost run at boyd lake state park....something i didn't know if i could do. it was so fun, so the end of summer i emailed my sis and asked if she would want to do the 10k this year....move up a bit each year, you know. she was thrilled and i figured it would keep me motivated to stay running consistently (it didn't, unfortunately). oh well, i put it in my mind that slow and steady finishes the course....doesn't win, but finishes....that's good enough for me. i really wanted to finish without walking at all. the first 2 miles were my hardest, but never felt like i wanted or needed to walk (slow and steady finishes the course). at mile three i thought ' hey, look at this....i'm almost 1/2 way done'....then, i pretended to be my friend molly (she is the hardest core friend i have....she'll just sign up for an event and do it lickity split never training or she'll go and win a trophy in a motorcycle race after being on a track for an hour, not something she does just every other afternoon or something! WHAT? who does that?? my friend molly....so i pretended to be her). at mile 4 i said to myself....'way to go! you're going further than you ever have before'. at mile 5 i said, 'what the heck! you've gone 5 miles....you can do one more measly little mile'. so i did. i learned i am a better runner by myself than with a partner....i can focus on what my goals are rather than feel like i need to accommodate someone else's needs.
i didn't finish with the best time (1hour/12minutes), but that was good enough for me. i finished the course....slow and steady. perhaps next year i will train and rather than try to do the 1/2 marathon ( i think it is a little too soon to be thinking i am ready for a 1/2 marathon with all the pep talking i had to give myself), i will simply try to beat my time on the 10k route. i think that is a good goal. it was a fun morning, even as early as it was.