Hi everyone!
Yesterday morning I was fortunate enough to be able to run my first race since having baby Griffin in November!
Jordan had to work, so my parents kindly agreed to come watch the kiddos until I returned from the race. This makes my third time running the Tour Des Fleurs quarter marathon at the Dallas Arboretum, and it’s one of my very favorites!
The morning started bright and early with me leaving the house about 5:15am to arrive at the arboretum by 6am. Parking is often a challenge, and with the half marathon starting at 7am I wanted to be sure to find a spot.
Since I was about an hour and a half early for my race I sat and enjoyed the sunrise for a bit before heading to the starting line.
We lined up at about 7:40, with a 7:50am start planned. The quarter marathon is a distance of 6.5 miles, so just slightly longer than the usual 6.2 mile 10K.
I had slacked off a little on my training over the past few weeks, only just managing to get in a 5.5 miler on Monday morning, so I wasn’t sure how this was going to go. My endurance definitely wasn’t where it needed to be.
As usual for me, I started off way too fast my first mile, clocking somewhere in the high 7 minutes. I had to slow down significantly towards the end of the race as the distance was already a stretch and I had burned myself out quite a bit. I was targeting a sub 1:00 hour finish, and just managed it at 58:10.
I was pretty excited to place fourth in my division considering it was my first real race in quite a while.
It was also fun to come home to the kiddos after the race, since they were convinced that I had won due to my medal. They ran around with both my medal and my finishers hat all afternoon.
So what’s next? Any time I race I get jazzed about doing more, so we’re planning to do the Turkey Trot in November. They have both a 5K and 8 mile option, but since I want to work on my speed I think we’re going to do the shorter race. We’ll keep you posted!
Hope everyone is having a great weekend!
jordanpluskate 