I ran this race on 100% pure stubbornness. After completing the marathon, I took a week off running. But since Cherry Blossom was only three weeks after the marathon, I came back to running (painful as it was) to maintain my base fitness and to attempt to work some speed back into my runs. Normally I would like to take a couple of weeks off, but the Cherry Blossom 10-miler is such a fast, beautiful course, that I didn't want to show up with anything other than my best.
About 10 days before the race, I started getting sick. A cold turned into significant chest congestion that lasted a week. Still, I ran through the sickness and told myself that I would be healed by race day. Although I felt like I had mostly recovered by Friday/Saturday, the night before Cherry Blossom, I had a low-grade fever and seemed to be getting really sick again. Sunday morning, I decided that I would run the race anyway, and if the coughing fits got too intense, I would trot the ten miles at a slower pace. I knew it wouldn't be a PR day because my lungs were not a full capacity, but it's hard to show up to a race without giving it your full effort.
Prior to the race, I
Owen and I renewed our 10-mile rivalry. I'm not sure that I would have run as hard without someone to shadow during the race. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, I'm not sure. The weather was perfect, the course was perfect as usual, and had I felt 100% in my lungs, it might have been a good race day. At the start, my goal was to maintain contact with Owen and try to keep miles under 7 minutes. I had a few painful coughing fits early on, but my legs felt relatively fresh. It's amazing how much effort you can shift between your body's various systems. In some races, I have leaned on my heart and lungs when my legs are weak. This race, I leaned almost entirely on my legs. At 3 miles, I was running a solid 6:45/mi, and swapped places with Owen around Mile 5. Although I didn't feel great, I felt like I was still holding back a little in my legs.
Contrary to prior years, when I was training UP TO ten miles, this year I have run over 10 miles at least 15 times. So I knew the distance wouldn't be a problem -- just the intensity. And keeping back the coughing fits forced me to focus on every single breath in ... and ... out. At mile 8, I decided to turn up the speed a bit and ran 6:35/mi for the last two.
If I said it was great to cross the finish line, I would be lying. Once I stopped running, an hour's worth of coughing fits burst out of me. It was so painful, I couldn't even enjoy the runner's high. It wasn't a PR, but I was only off my PR by 90 seconds. After the race, I had the chills. My fever had risen to 101.6. Was it stupid to run a race while running a temperature? Yes. It has probably set back my recovery by a few days (or more, still not sure at this point). But after I had forced myself back into running so soon after the marathon, and after I had trained for so many miles and so many hours, I thought it was a total ripoff that I could be derailed by something completely out of my control. Thankfully, I have quite a while before my next race, so I can dial back the mileage and focus on feeling like myself again.
Once again, Alisha came through for me. She dragged three cranky kids out into the cold to watch me run a race that I clearly had no business running. She endured my constant complaints about my lungs, but still cheered me on and took great photos. And she refrained from multiple possible "I told you so"s. She makes me feel like a winner.
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