Race Against Pulmonary Hypertension 5k

My 10th race was this morning: The 10th Annual Race Against PH on the Stanford campus in Palo Alto.

This race was a first for me: my first race in the rain! It felt familiar, since I was training for months during the never-ending rainy season in the Pacific Northwest last winter, but that didn't necessarily mean that it was the most pleasant.


You'd think this was the starting line. You'd be wrong. It's just a giant blowup arch perched on a little hill.

I wasn't trying for a PR today. Just wanted to go out and have fun. Mission (mostly) accomplished. Mile 1 was killer. The course was really narrow, and the fast runners who started at the back of the pack were brutal. I got body slammed from behind by one of them trying to get around a cone. There were also lots of kids on the course. If you know me, you know I'm all for the presence of kids in any context. But these particular kids felt the need to bob and weave around me, and especially to stop dead in their tracks right in front of me. Killed the groove a bit. That, combined with the rain and just feeling sluggish and tired from the start made it a challenge.


Stanford in the rain. Still beautiful.

Mile 2, though, was amazing. Mostly because I'm 99.9% sure the Mile 2 marker was placed *really* early, resulting in me running an 11-minute mile without even trying. My previous fastest (ever) is/was around 13, so I really don't think it was placed correctly. At the time, though, I wasn't thinking about it, and got a huge boost of energy from my false sense of superwomanhood. I was able to make up some time during the last bit of the course and managed to finish under 45:00, which was the goal I had set for myself today.


This was the design on the t-shirt. Adding some pastels to the mix finally!

A bunch of Andy's [very fast-running] coworkers also came out for the race, and we ate brunch afterwards together. Food is always my #1 motivator. Most importantly, I got another shirt to add to my collection!

We're trying to decide whether to do a 5k next weekend too. It's in Monterey and sounds like a really fun course. I'm nuts, I know. I just want the damn t-shirt!