Its always a great day when you run with a friend….

Honestly I have done 26 races and only a handful have I ran with someone and to be honest up until today the only person I have ran with is family, my big sister the most.  So a friend of mine, I found was doing the Aloha 10K, and guess what so was I, YEAH.. kind of .. maybe.  So it sounds like a good idea but then I start thinking, will I be able to keep up with her, will I be holding her back, all these negative thoughts start running through your mind.  But its Shawn and I spent 24 hours with Shawn when she was doing the Relay for Life I mean you learn things at 2 am in the morning.

Now this is my 3rd 10k this year so I was actually feeling pretty comfortable about it.  Headed to package pickup at of course my favorite store Road Runners Sports, I think they are all getting to know me know that I am there so often.  Picked up the package at oddly the same time as a Halloween race… which Halloween is weeks away.  I also was able to pick up a couple needed items such as a new water bottle with pouch as I know I am really want to start using nutrition while running.  I also picked up a couple more Nunn as they had a flavor I had not tried, mixed berry.  So now time to go home and get Flat Teri set up.

Race Morning always comes so fast and what was interesting about this morning was my From Fat To Finish Line community had many of their members out there doing races across the United States.  John Husley Runner 12 was doing the Long Beach Marathon, a handful of friends were doing the Chicago Marathon and another handful of friends were heading to Hawaii for the Reebok Ragnar.  So as I am preparing to get dressed I turn on TV and flipping though channels found a channel airing the Chicago Marathon.. how cool was that.  Someday Teri someday!

Once at the race I run into my favorite race warm up guy Nasara Gargonnu, he has been at the majority of my races warming my butt up, but the fun part about today he was getting to focus on running and let someone else handle the warm up.

Now to find Shawn and get our race on!!  So as short as I am Shawn is tall, so I found her pretty easily.  Shawn was as excited as I was, to do this race as she has done it pretty much every year.  This run was going to be special as she was going to try and get me to PR.  All I had to do was beat the time of 1:17 minutes, yikes!   And so we are waiting for the race to begin and figuring out what pace and how we want to do this.  I choose to run with none to minimal stopping, Shawn was good with that.  So run programs started, earbud in one ear so I can get pace and distance and one quick potty run because well that is my crazy.

This honestly was a pretty smooth run, we ran pretty much consistently for the first 4 miles then started taking quick breaks at the water station.  Shawn let me know that we were pretty good to go on beating my last time, but little did she know that my legs were really getting tired.  But here is the funny thing about running with a friend, sometimes you get energy and motivation just by running next to them.  We chatted the whole way and before we know it the finish line is in sight.  We picked it up at the end and I felt great going across the finish line.  Official finish time was 1:12 and yes I not only PR but I shaved 5 minutes off my last 10k.   This was a great finish line because I finished with a great friend who saw me to a great finish.

So now race #26 in the books and now to focus on preparing for my next huge race and that is the Espirt de She Duathlon.  I am so nervous about this race as I have never done a dual sport race.  But what does not kill us only makes us stronger… no dying allowed in racing.

So as always see you at the finish line.