I ran the Sole of the City 10k with No Preparation & Didn’t Die

No matter how many times I say I’m going to actually prepare for a race… I don’t. Whether it be my first 5k after popping a baby out of my hooha (find it here) or my first 10k ever (here’s that post) I always register with the best of intentions, and then do literally nothing to prepare.

Well, I did it again.

I got all registration happy in January and registered for the Sole of the City 10k. I figured, I had PLENTY of time to do a bunch of warm-up runs. And then, months went by and I ran ONCE. Yeah, that’s right… I banged out a whole 2 ½ miles in the middle of March and was pretty darn proud of myself.

I kind of ignored the fact that I’d signed up to run 6 ½ miles. And that worked pretty well for me, until the weekend before the race. That was the do or die time of ‘should I go on a practice run or just sit on the couch so I don’t hurt myself before the run?’ Wanna guess which I chose?

Yup, couch potato.

In the days leading up to the race, I started feeling a little nervous. I wasn’t sure if my 40-year-old body could deal with the shock of running 6 ½ miles. So, I ignored it some more.

Then, the day of the race came. When in doubt, wear a cute running skirt…

I’m not going to say it was a perfect race… because it wasn’t. Around mile 2 I felt kind of pukey with some acid reflux, which thankfully worked itself out within a half-mile or so. And I was certainly slower than I wanted to be. BUT. I did it.

Here is my friend Lindsey and I after the race:

And here is the most Baltimore photo in all the land:

That’s a ton of Natty Boh boxes, in case you are trying to figure out what you are looking at…

After the race, I used the Physique 57 Massage Roller from my Spring FabFitFun box and I really do feel like it helped my calves not feel so ouchy. My knees hurt later that day, but nothing that some extra strength Tylenol couldn’t handle. On Sunday I was sore, but honestly didn’t feel that bad. I remember feeling much worse after the Bay Bridge 10k in the fall.

So, rack up another win for my ‘no preparation’ races. Guess I should find another one to register for soon…