Cinco de Mayo! (a few days early)

This morning I got up at 6 for to run the Cinco de Mayo 10K in West Tucson. The course was rolling hills through a Marriot Resort, and in celebration of Cinco de Mayo, had a Mariachi band and bfast burritos at the finish line. Now, I'm not a big eater post run (except oranges and bananas), but they were wrapped up nicely and I grabbed one to take home to Luke.

The elevation gain on this course was about 280 ft, or about 1/2 of the last race I ran. I finished at 58 min on the nose (maybe a little less if you subtract the time it took me to get up to the start line) which is a 9 min 20 sec pace. I felt really comfortable for the whole run and have had no runner-stomach problems post-run. I'm working on trying to open my stride and achieve that relaxed, bouncy, look that I see in runners like L, PegLegMeg, and ReallyTiny. I'm much more the sweat hog/little engine that could. So I'm working on trying to relax while simultaneously hurl my body through space at a faster and faster pace. Yeah, I'll let you know how that works out.

I'm really happy with my pace and my over run I also learned that I really pick up my speed when the Black Eye'd Peas come up on my play list. Also, I love my new Brooks trail runners. ReallyTiny has been trying to get me to try Brooks for a while (I was a loyal Asics or Saucony girl), and I really should have listened to her earlier. They are wonderfully supportive but also really light and breathe really well.

This is my last race for a while so I promise, no more boring running posts. I'll get back to my usual bitching about grants/funding/academia/AZ politics soon enough.