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Manchester Road Race Report

It was cold! Probably around 22 degrees F, and windy. We had a late race start of 10am, but this is a 15,000 person race. Last year, we ended up way in the back of the pack and spent the first mile dodging baby strollers, and stupid kids that were darting around in your way, or would run run run then stop directly in front of you. This year, we decided to go early & try to get to the front of the pack. We got to the shuttle buses around 8:15, and at the race start about 8:30. Met up with my friend A (who had the blood clot), she & her husband were watching because the race had sold out. We lined up around 8:45am, at the front of the pack behind the seeded gates that you needed a qualifying card to get in to. Stood around freezing, and chatting until 10am, then we were off!

Mile 0-1 - My feet were numb, it actually took the whole first mile to thaw out. I amazingly kept up with my brother & his friend who were starting out slow to warm up. 10:09 


Mile 1-2 - The hills began. The elevation & length of the hills was killer. I had to take a short walk break once on my way up the steepest one. 11:10



Mile 2-3 - The killer hills continued until about mile 2.5, then it was downhill time. I am at my best on downhills. I fly through, pass as many people as I can, and try to make up some time from slugging up the hill so slowly before. I KILLED this mile 9:27

Mile 3-4 - Starting to get tired, HR was high. I had to walk a couple of times for 20 seconds or so. felt pretty good for most of this mile. 9:56

Mile 4-4.77 - pushed it with all that I had left. Some point here, I felt a splash of water around my ankles. At the end of the race, I realized this was the cap to the water bottle on my fuel belt falling off. No one had said anything to me when it fell. Oh well. Finished the race feeling tired & thirsty with a Garmin time on 48:01. 7:17 for the last .77

Official finishing time of 48:00! Perfectly even! I killed my time of 53:12 from last year & made my impossible goal of beating it by 5 minutes. I felt great after the race, and made some plans with a few friends and my brother to add a 10k & a 5k to the schedule for next weekend. My long run partner, S, will be on vacay so instead of running the 12 miles alone, I am going to split up my long run into races next weekend. 10k sat, 5k sun & 3 more miles on my own on sunday. not too bad to deal with.

Wanted to share my excitement on a couple of new things! First is my new Sugoi running jacket Kevin bought me for my birthday! I love it so much! Perfect color, has great reflectability, and the sleeves are even removable to turn it into a vest. They are held on with a super strong magnet. 
The other thing I'm excited about is the pair of Ryders sunglasses that Scott at Outside PR sent me. Full review & giveaway to follow!

The thing I'm not so excited about? I know so many of you rave about Gu & how much you like it. Scott at Outside PR was awesome enough to send me a sampler pack of Gu to try. I'm wondering if I am doing something wrong with taking it, because I just could not handle the consistency. It was way too thick, and I couldn't choke it down. I liked the flavor (pineapple) that I tried on my longrun today, but had to toss it away because the consistency was so gross to me. any suggestions?

Tomorrow is the LAST DAY to enter my giveaway for Jessica's gifts running necklace HERE.

couple of great giveaways in the works so be on the look out! I'm off to the mall for some shopping (for me haha), so I'll recap todays long run later. Happy running!

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