Birch Bay International Road Race 2013

This year I was training to beat my time from last year. But last Saturday when I ran the course my left achilles tendon felt tight and uncomfortable but not unbearably so. When I was done it was super sore to the touch. I took the week off to rest it and by Wednesday it seemed to be back to normal. Last night as I laid out my gear I wasn't optimistic about a PR at all and listening to the rain made me want to back out altogether. I woke up and it wasn't raining anymore! I checked the radar and it showed a huge break in the clouds coming our way. (In fact it's nicer now than during the race!) I left the house with a more positive outlook but decided that today was not the day to push it physically. I was careful to warm-up and stretch before the race started. Wouldn't you know it started feeling tight again about 3km in. Not wanting to risk serious injury I stopped to use the bathroom and stretch some more, total stop time was probably less than 4 minutes. It felt looser after that but ached off and on for the duration. I came up the last hill strong and pushed myself to the finish line feeling as Bad Ass as my socks claimed. ;) I came across the line at 1:40:something, no Garmin time or splits to compare as it decided to take a shit this morning and refuse to come on if not plugged in.

Standing around waiting to go into the starting corral.

Peeking out of the crowd just moments before the gun!

Passing Andy with about 3km to go! Still smiling!

Done and all medalled up!

Had to show off my Bad Ass socks!

All in all not a bad race, way better organization than the last one for sure! Only wanted to shank one other runner this time. She came right up next to me and paced me but couldn't run in a straight line thus forcing me farther to the left and nearly off the pavement, I finally just kicked it up a notch and got in front of her. :)

What did you do today?