Meteor 10K

Saturday was a good day. So far though, race day's are always good days. The race was the Meteor 10K in Dearborn, MI. I have non-running friends that live about 10 minutes from Dearborn so I did the 3 hour drive the day before. Race morning we woke up, had some oats, and were on our way by 7:35. I was a little surprised that there weren't signs on the road pointing the way but I was riding with locals so it didn't really matter to me. Packet pick-up went smooth. The race shirt is really amazing, it's posted on the race website if you haven't seen it. We met up with some other friends who were also running the race. I did a little light stretching, but didn't feel like I needed to warm up too much. There was a DJ at the start/finish so that was cool to have some inspirational classics to run with. The course was an odd one, fitting to the alien theme, I'm sure. It looped back on it self a couple times and had an out and back portion in the middle. The weather was absolutely perfect, spring sprung at just the right time. Before I knew it we were off and running. The first mile went pretty quick for me, 9:47. At about 1 1/2 miles we ran through the start/finish again. Hearing dear friends cheer you on while you put forth great effort is a feeling of elation that is difficult to describe. I could feel myself running faster without trying. I hit the second mile marker in 9:52, still pretty quick. The course then went out onto a divided road (at the time I thought it was an expressway, but it's not). The police support was impressive as they had one lane shut down and every 300 feet or so there was a cop car and officer. I forgot to check my splits the rest of the race. When we left the divided road we ran down one of those clover turns that loops around on itself to merge onto another road, so you got to see a glimpse of who was behind you. Next was a mile or so out and back. I spotted my friends and even a fellow blogger, they were all looking strong and about 10 minutes ahead of me. There was water around the 4 mile mark which was nice since this was the least shaded part of the course. As I was running the back portion I was surprised at the amount of people behind me. I wasn't coming anywhere close to last today. The last mile or so was the windiest and hilliest portion, but that was ok as I was ready for a change of scenery. Near the six mile mark there was the only evidence of winter, a former snowbank had melted into a pond in the trail and muddy bog surrounding it. I made the jump and sprinted off for the finish line. About 100 feet later I slowed down, as two tenths of a mile suddenly looked a lot longer than I had expected. I got faster as I approached the cheering crowds. I could feel tears welling up inside me, and a little nausea. I crossed the finish line at 1:02:58 by my watch, chip time 1:03:00. They clipped off my chip and I reconnected with my friends and a bottle of Gatorade. This was probably the best organized and most fun race that I've run yet. I hope to run in either the half or the 10k again next year.