Bayou City Classic 10k Recap

A week ago I checked the weather for Saturday's race and it said 67 and sunny. But when race day came, it was anything but the nice running weather promised. The whole weekend has been scattered thunderstorms- alternating downpour, drizzles, and threatening skies. Here was Saturday's weather at race start:

Gross.

Friday night we had a going away party for one of Dan's coworkers, at a very classy joint called Twin Peaks. It's like Hooters with younger, even more scantily clad waitresses, with a woodsman theme. So classy. After the party we battled the rain and traffic (downpour plus rush hour plus President visiting Houston does not equal a quick drive) so we could eat a good, healthy, pre-race dinner. I had originally planned rotisserie chicken and baked potatoes, but then Dan remembered it was Lent, so we switched our plan to tofu fried rice:

Terriyaki tofu

Brown fried rice

Pretty delicious dinner. The veggies were a frozen pack of "Italian Vegetable Medley" I bought at Kroger: zuccini, cauliflower, lima beans, carrots, and red pepper. I also tossed in some sliced onion and some frozen edamame. I used Minute Brown Rice (which takes 10 minutes) because I was too lazy to make regular brown rice. Who has time to cook rice for 40 minutes?! We set up our race stuff, and headed to bed.

His and hers race outfits!

 We got up at 6:20 Saturday morning (better get used to it for training in the summer) but thanks to daylight savings (or lack thereof) it was a little bit light out already. Shame we had to kiss that goodbye! It was only a light rain as we found a parking spot, walked over to the start line, and got ready to go.
The announcer said "Go!" and we were off. One of the cool things about this race is the Centipedes. People enter the race as a Centipede, multiple people who run as a group, in costume, holding onto a rope. There are prizes given out for the Centipedes too. At the start line we saw a group of Marilyn Monroes running with Joe Dimaggio, and their rope was a red feather boa. We were passed early on by a bunch of Mexican wrestlers; and we fell into pace with a group of hippie protesters carrying picket signs and being chased by two cops. Very cute! I'm sad that I don't have any pictures, but my camera would have gotten soaked!

My Garmin started flipping out- either I didn't set the pace zones right or it couldn't handle running through all the buildings downtown because it kept beeping to "slow down" but then our pace jumped from 7 min/mi (which I know I cannot run that fast) to 16 min/mi and back again. I canceled my program because it was driving me crazy, so it didn't have the correct time or pace for the rest of the race.  Around the 4th mile marker, the rain and wind got alot heavier. We were already soaked through, but then the rain started pelting us and the wind was really cold! At that point, of course, the only way to end your misery is to finish so that's what we did!

The results. Do you see what that says?! 1:14:00 exactly for my chip time. I did it! My goals for the race were:

• Finish. Check!
• Run the whole thing. Check! 
• Finish in under 1:14. I think 1:14:00 counts. Check! 

The post race party looked pretty awesome: we snagged mini Clif bars, beer (!), breakfast tacos, and a bowl of fruit and chicken (?). It was all tasty, and there was plenty more options, but it was still raining hard and we were soaked and cold so we downed our beer, scarfed our food, and ran back to the car. I think I ran back to the car faster than I ran in the entire race. We stripped off our outer layers, but I was soaked all the way to my sports bra and my shoes were swimming-- it was impossible to avoid all the puddles.

Is the drowned rat look sexy?

We came home, warmed up in the hot shower, took an hour nap, and ate some grilled cheese. Yum!

I definitely want to run this race again next year, and hope for better weather. The organization, course support, and after party all were phenomenal.... I'm just sad I couldn't enjoy it as fully because I was freezing and soaked.