At 5:00 a.m. on race day, my alarm went off. I felt like I hadn't slept a wink; while I knew I'd in fact gotten a solid seven hours, they had been filled with stress nightmares full of complicated scenarios in which I somehow missed the race. I rolled out of bed, threw on the gear I'd laid out the night before, and made a double espresso.
My boyfriend had signed up for the race on his own, so we packed into his Prius and went to meet the rest of the Nike team to take a shuttle to the race. By the time we got to the Choose Go site around 6:30, the sun had started to rise and thousands of people in hot-pink racing bibs were heading toward the pens. Another advantage of running with the official Nike team: we got to be at the head of the pack. At the start line, I fired up the playlist I'd made specifically for the race and felt the butterflies start. "3, 2, 1 . . ." and we were off.
Running on an empty LA freeway was surreal — and packed with more hills than I'd expected. At mile one, I realized I'd been running a 7'50" mile and knew I had to pull back a bit. My breathing was getting unsteady. (I tried to tune out the other runners, but as a competitive person, I hate being passed. Especially by teenagers.) As we ran off the exit ramp to loop back for the second half of the race, I tried to focus on my form and breathing. As Eliud advised in the guided run I'd listened to weeks before, I didn't try to distract myself from the run; I tried to be as present in the run as I could.
As the finish line finally came into site, so did the digits on the race clock. It had only been 49'15"! I knew this was my last shot and sprinted as hard as I could in the hopes of breaking 50 minutes. Reader, I did not do it. I came close, but I crossed the finish line at 50'30" — or 50'28" net time — which was still far better than I expected. It was an average of 8'18" a mile. As I crossed the line, I also suspected there was another reason Blue had advised against eating. I heaved a few times as I slowed to a stop, barely preventing myself from throwing up. But I took it as a good sign — a sign that I'd clearly given the race all I had.
One of my friends texted me that afternoon after I posted a picture of me pushing over the finish line: "You're a runner now!" she said. My initial reaction was to demur, but I think she might be right. Here's proof: it's only been three days since the race, and I've already gone on another four-mile run . . . by choice.
