Race Day!

The race was GREAT! I can officially say that I LOVE RACE DAY! The excitement, seeing everyone, the start, the finish...I love it all! One of my favorite parts of the race is when you are running a long, and then the really fast people have already made it to the turn around and are running towards you (at mile 5 on my side!!), it just makes you go faster!!!

So, for this race I decided that my strategy would be "Part Galloway" and "Part Margo", and I've decided to call it the "Margo Music Method"! Here's how it works, run for 2 songs then walk for 1 minute, repeat until you're done!!! Here's the breakdown (according to my Garmin)-
13.26 miles/2:13:29/10:04
1 - 9:26
2 - 9:44
3 - 10:05
4 - 9:49
5 - 10:12
6 - 9:55
7 - 9:52
8 - 9:57
9 - 10:11
10 - 10:28 (1:39 at 10 Miles)
11 - 9:47
12 - 10:36
13 - 11:08

Keep in mind that the course was 1 mile down hill, then relatively flat with 1 long-ish uphill grade leading up the turnaround, then flat the rest of the time, so I'm sure this was a little on the "faster side" than normal for me...none the less....it was way better than I thought I'd do and it felt GREAT!
I felt really great pretty much the whole time! I didn't start feeling any pain until the last 2-3 miles, then as you can tell from the last mile time I started to get a little slow (had to stretch a few times), but I was able to finish looking strong! My parents were waiting for me at the finish line and it was so great to see them, along with the rest of my teammates!!!

My "neighbor girls" couldn't make it to the race (they had soccer), but here are pictures of us after the race! I'll have more once I get them off the camera!

Now I'm just hanging out icing my knees and feet...they are pretty sore already! Tonight I'm going to go out for a good dinner...can't wait!