Race Report: Women Run the Cities 10 Mile

This weekend M. and I headed to the Twin Cities for dinner, a night at the opera to see Cosi Fan Tutti, and so that I could participate in the Women Run the Cities 10 Miler. I had registered for this race several months ago and had envisioned it as a fun way to do a taper run heading into the countdown for Chicago. Regular readers know that due to the issues with my IT band, though, I won't be running the Chicago Marathon. The past week or so I've been struggling to come to terms with the fact that this 10 mile race was going to be my last of the fall and have been bouncing back and forth between acceptance and frustrated negativity. I have to admit that part of me secretly hoped that I would line up on race day and nail 10 pain-free miles and that I would be able to put Chicago back on the table. However, that was not the case.

Yesterday morning I woke up after a few hours of sleep, dressed, and downed a cup of coffee and some breakfast. M. and I headed down to Minnehaha Park, where I met up with Lisa of Lisa's Yarns and Kyria of Travel Spot. It was so nice to meet both of these awesome ladies. After a photo op, we lined up to start. A few weeks ago, Lisa and I had discussed running the first couple of miles together, but she has been smoking up the pavement lately and I am obviously not in top form. Kyria is also speedy, so we all wished each other luck and took off to run our separate races.

With Kyria and Lisa before the race

Hundreds of awesome women, ready to run

My hip felt tight from the start and had a dull ache going by mile 2. By mile 5, my hip was cramping. Knowing that I could finish the last 5 miles - having finished several long runs with similar hip pain - and knowing that this was my last race of the fall, I gutted this one out. I was mentally in the zone and, while I did do some walking and stretching to try to shake the hip out and reduce the cramping at various points, my conditioning and overall ability to run by feel are definitely positives to take away from this training season. I don't know what my splits were because my Garmin died earlier this week (RIP, old friend.), but I ran with the 10:30 pacer for a couple of miles and stayed ahead of the 11:00 min/mile pacer the entire time. My official time was 1:45:45, averaging out to a 10:34 min/mile.

With my arms raised in victory, but sadly mostly obscured by another runner

The course was beautiful - starting in Minnehaha Park, winding up to the Franklin Avenue Bridge, and coming back down the East River Parkway, before finishing back in the park. The sun was shining, the leaves were just beginning to change colors; it was cool but not too cold; and it was just an amazing experience to run 10 miles with over a thousand other women. The course had a few challenging inclines, but it felt very fast to me.  There was a beautiful view of the Minneapolis skyline from one of the bridges, and I wished that I had been able to snap a picture of it. Maybe it's because it was my first 10 mile race, maybe it was because I wasn't constantly checking my Garmin, but the miles just ticked by even with the hip pain. Probably, though, it was because the energy on the course was awesome. There weren't many spectators, but the volunteers were fantastic (no fingers in cups here!) and there was a lot of camaraderie among the participants, as a number of teams were running and many friends were running together and chatting away the miles. I would love to do this race again next year!

After the race, I felt good about my time but was hurting pretty badly. I spent a few minutes stretching and drank a bottle of water. Then, M. and I headed out to meet back up with Lisa and Kyria at Victor's 1959 Cafe for a delicious brunch. I refueled on the Cuban scramble and split a mango pancake with my husband. We chatted about running, jobs, travel, and languages. Not surprisingly, I failed to take any photos at brunch, but it was a great time. Afterwards, we headed our separate ways, and I came home to do some class prep for the week and some other work that I needed to get done.

How was your weekend? Any races? Any fantastic meals?