A New PR!!!

So, Beat the Banana was fun, but a LOT different from any race that I've been in.

First of all, this was a very non-competitive fun run. They didn't even have a clock, so I'm glad that I had my running watch with me. We met at the South Bandstand in Hyde Park, but they didn't have roads closed off or anything. In fact, when the woman at the starting line was going over "rules", one of them was "watch out for people and bikers along the course".

EVERYONE wore their t-shirts. Which to me, is really funny . My friend Jen, wanted to wear her Hyde Park Blast tee in the race last year (because they are so cool, and because my company designed them, and because she happened to be the Client Team on that project) and my boss Richard was like "no, no, no, only amateurs wear the race shirt the day of the race". I kept thinking about that when I was watching all of these people in their bright yellow "Beat the Banana" shirts. I shoved mine into my backpack and put it in the tent with all of the other backpacks. But then I realized that if I didn't wear it, I would be the only runner NOT wearing one. And despite my track record of being a non-conformist, there are just some times when you have to conform.

It was a good thing, too, because otherwise I would have gotten lost in the shuffle. Because people work out and run and walk and bike along these paths, it would have been hard to tell who was in the race. And all of the yellow shirts made it easy to spot where the course was.

So I was dying! I felt so tired, and sneezy, running through all of the polleny trees and plants. And I felt like it was HOT (it was only 74). I was trying to do a 9 minute mile. It was hard to figure out though, because they don't mark the miles here, only the kilometers, and I was trying to do the math in my head, but it just is not one of my strong points. It has been really hard for me to get out of my 11-minute mile pace that I was running for the marathon. I thought for sure it wasn't going to happen. I felt like (and the calculations in my head told me) I was doing about a 10 minute mile.

At the last kilometer I looked at my watch and SWORE it said 26 something, but I don't think it did, because I finished with a 26:43! Yay! A new personal record for me!!! (That's an 8:35 mile pace!) I know I'm not breaking any world records, but for me that is AWESOME!

Since Bill wasn't here to buy me ice cream (that's his thing...whenever I get a PR we get whatever kind of ice cream I want. I usually go for Dairy Queen) I got a banana milkshake at dinner tonight.

Oh yes, and now I also have a bright yellow t-shirt that says "Beat the Banana" (and the banana was FAST).