Back from my first (and, let’s face it, last) 10k! I don’t know what my time was because I didn’t know you were supposed to look up at the clock, but for me, it was decent. I’d hoped to finish before they scraped you up off the road and really hoped to finish in 80 minutes. I realize for real runners that’s a joke, but when you’ve never done it before and are not a runner, it’s not bad.
The way it turned out, I think I beat it, but I’m not sure.
A little while after I’d finished – I’d talked to some people I knew, gotten
water and took the little clip thing off my shoe and traded it for me
“finisher” medal – another friend came up to me, all smiles, and said she’d
finished in under 1:20.
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| Internet photo, not mine |
Sunrise
at Angkor Wat is phenomenal. I didn’t take any photos, but it looked something
like this, but a heck of a lot more crowded. Haven’t seen the numbers this
year, but last year’s race had about 2500 people, so it was a tad more crowded,
too.
And it was rough, but honestly not as bad as I thought it
would be. As it was, I probably ran half and walked (really fast) half. I’m
more of a stamina person – after the 5k mark, I felt a lot better. But it
really got to the point where I was like, you know, I can do this, but do I
really want to? Even having been there before, I was wowed by the scenery and
decided to enjoy it and not kill myself.
And I did good. I kicked up the headphones and tried to
enjoy it. I’d picked some upbeat songs to try to keep pace, and had a good
time. I tried to hit t rhythm of walking for a few minutes, then finishing out
that song and the next at a jog/run, but that ended around 6k, when I went into
some Barenaked Ladies live versions – those went on forever.
Around 9k, Aaron Tipped kicked in. If “Working Man’s PhD”
doesn’t get you moving faster, something is wrong with you! So I give him
partial credit for my finish!
Honestly, in my little crew of about 10, I think I was the
third to finish. And those were the two real runners in the 10k. (We had a crew
doing the 21k, too.)
And it’s not like we took it really seriously. A friend
finished after the sweep-up time (although they didn’t actually do this; the
clock just kept running.) armed with pictures and videos of monkeys she’d seen
along the way. She said she took a 10-minute detour and shot photos. I mean,
the area is just beautiful – it’s a UNESCO site.
In my training – if you could call it that – I finished it
up at a level of walking at 6.something kilometers and hour for two minutes,
then finishing out the K at a pace of anywhere between 9.5 and 10.5 kpm, and at
an incline of 6-8. So stamina I had, but speed I will never, ever have.
The rest of the trip was not great. The night before the
flight, I got little sleep, and the night before the race, I got none. As in
not a minute.
On Saturday after we arrived, we wandered around town, and
Siem Reap is hot and dry. I’d drunk water and tea, but by the end of the
evening I had a migraine coming on. That usually isn’t a huge deal because
normally they go away when I get some sleep, and we were headed back to our
little guest room for the night at 8:30 p.m.
(As an aside, the hotel we stayed at was a hotel school for
underprivileged Cambodians. It was a really nice place to stay at, and it only
cost $26.)
I could not sleep. One bit. I tossed and turned, the
migraine growing. It was awful. I’d check the time and think, “Oh, OK, it’s
midnight, but I can still get 4:30 of sleep.” And it just went on and on.
I thought I was doomed.
But the next morning, when I got to the race, it went away.
Thank you, Jesus, for that one!
The rest of the day was also good. After cleaning up, my
little group went to get massages, ate lunch at a Mexican place (though I had
Cambodian) and then took a near-perfect flight home.
What a great weekend!
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