Earlier in the week last week, I was struggling with how I wanted to run this race. You see, I haven't been training for a 10 mile race. I've been training for a marathon. I did what any good user of social media would do, and threw the question out there for cyberspace to answer. WOW. I had more hits on that post than I could have imagined and tons of comments, on the post itself, twitter and facebook. I can't say how thankful I am to have such wonderful friends and followers out there. You all definitely gave me a lot to think about.
In the end, my decision was made for me. I'd planned to run 1-2 miles at the gym before the race, but I found out it wouldn't be open early enough. So, after talking to my sports chiro, I decided to just go all out and run this 10 as hard as I possibly could. He said if something felt off or I just wasn't feeling the speed, back it down and run a couple more miles later in the day.
Sunday morning started like any other race morning. Early. And with almost no sleep the night before
I loaded my crap in the car and headed for downtown Grand Rapids (a whopping 10 miles away - gotta love a close race). I parked in a lot about a 1/2 mile or so from the start and noticed my engine was smoking and there was a nasty smell coming from under the hood. Crap. I seriously thought my car was on fire. The smoke seemed to go away after a few minutes, so I called the husband (waking his sleepy butt up) to tell him my car was possibly on fire and where it was parked, but that I was going to walk into town for the race.