Tuesday, June 21, 2016

We Run the Grove 10k: a race recap

On June 12th I ran We Run the Grove. It's a small race that starts and ends at the Grove shopping centre. This was my first LA race and even though I only had one goal (finish under 60 minutes) I was still nervous and got there an hour early. I stood in line for about 3 minutes for packet pickup. They gave out race shirts and since I had taken an Uber I had no place to put mine. So I improvised:


With my bib and shirt in place, I began to wander through the place. it's an open air mall with a fountain in the middle. At one point I asked a security guard where the restrooms were and she directed me to the lobby. I'm not sure if it was for a movie theatre or a hotel, but it was sooo fancy. There were rows of crystals hanging on the walls, a cluster of glass butterflies, and there was a Rolls Royce parked in the middle. Also, it was hands down the nicest race bathroom I've ever used.

After a lot of wandering I started to follow the crowd to what I assumed must be the starting area. About 5 minutes later the race director came running over in a panic to loudly declare:


We slowly ambled back to the packet pickup area.

This was a small race to raise money for MS research. We had a celebrity representative and I was pretty excited to have recognized her.


No, no I didn't actually do that.

I was cool as a cucumber.


She totally didn't see me though so it was okay.

Once the talk was done, the race director asked all the 10k runners to raise our hands. A smattering of us throughout the crowd raised our hands. She then followed up immediately with:


I jumped into action with a rousing:


I quickly started weaving through the still-waiting half marathoners, while trying to start my watch and shove my phone into my belt, and slide the card with the course map into my sleeve.

Since this was an open course (i.e. the roads were not closed to traffic) we had to deal with stop lights and cars. At one point there was someone waving us through an intersection but the light turned red so I stopped. The guy behind me gave a frustrated huff and ran around me through the light. I must have been off the sidewalk because this happened:


Yelling at me to hurry tends to make my brain stop sending movement signals to my body.

Eventually though I was prompted to start running again, at which point a guy making a left leaned on his horn and stopped to yell at me for going through the intersection.


He was right, of course. I shouldn't have crossed at all.

The race continued through some lovely neighbourhoods in the Beverly Hills area, and I even got to chat with a local.


The chat continued.


He wanted more information.


I didn't actually say that.

I really wanted to meet my time goal so I said something to the effect of:


And I continued on my way.

I finished the race and only almost went with the half marathoners once. My unofficial time (because there was no official timing) was 58:19 and well within my goal of under 60 minutes! All but my first mile were well under 10:00 pace, and if I can run around 9:00 miles for 13.1 miles then I'll achieve my sub 2 hour goal. I've been told more times than I can count that this is a very doable goal, but somehow I just haven't been able to reach it yet. Maybe I'll try for a fall race, say, the Rock 'n' Roll LA.

Who wants to join me?

UPCOMING POSTS: THERE ARE A COUPLE OF NEW THINGS I *MIGHT* TRY, SOME CHALLENGES SOME OF YOU CAN RELATE TO, MAYBE SOME MORE RUNNING AND SWIMMING.



22 comments:

  1. GIRL I LOVE YOUR POSTS...and this?? TOP 5 <3

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Carla!! i'm so glad you enjoyed it :D

      Delete
  2. Drawings are on point, as usual, and made me giggle! So proud of you for doing this race, and for smashing your goal time!! We WILL get you that sub 2...and yes I said we :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you Erika! Now wait...what is this "we"...??

      Delete
  3. Gosh, everything about that race would frustrate me! Glad you rolled with it!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It was frustrating, but it was free so I can't really complain too loudly :P

      Delete
  4. I'm still sad I did NOT know about this race until AFTER you finished and went home! I literally live RIGHT THERE!! I could have met you afterwards DARN IT. But I am also proud of you, that you drove all the way to WEHO!!! WAHOO!! Soon enough you will be confident enough to come to some of the deliciousness that I have been constantly telling you about and we can explore lots of areas around here! :P

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah I drove there....no, I didn't. I took an Uber. But I *would* drive there now that I know where it is. So we can totally hang out. Also, we've got cool places down here in SaMo if you would like to hang out here :D

      Delete
  5. Do the Dwight Crum pier to pier swim....hermosa beach area- it's awesome!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks! I'll keep that in mind for another year. My swim is not what it needs to be for ows this year.

      Delete
  6. Awesome! these illustrating photoes are funny. Actually, running is the difficult process if it want to succeed. It hopes that you will quickly improve your level.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I don't understand the last 2 sentences, but thank you for the rest!

      Delete
    2. He's a spammer. Trying to get you to go to his site.

      Delete
    3. Usually spammers don't take the time to make part of their comment personal, so that's why I responded. I agree the rest of it definitely sounds like spam :)

      Delete
    4. Sr! I am not spammers. I actually read your article and feel interesting, so i comment. I get used to read many porst from many sites, but your site use photos that look fun. And i like this one...

      Delete
    5. Thanks Canus! I appreciate your return to clarify and I'm glad you enjoyed my post :)

      Delete
  7. Congrats on your 10k but WTH that you had to stop at lights and stuff? What kind of race does that?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks! Yeah I don't know. I've done open courses before but they still had marshals helping us out. The guy at this intersection had a race bib on.

      Delete
  8. Nice job meeting your goal! The traffic sounds scary though :(

    They should have had someone directing traffic fo sho! I sit in that traffic all the time where I live.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah it was dumb. But it was nice to hit my goal, even with the traffic! Sounds like I need to go to races in your town!

      Delete
  9. Congrats on a strong race despite all the traffic shenanigans and distractions. That was weird.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Marcia! I'm learning that lots of things are weird here.

      Delete

I love comments and I always reply to each one!

LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...