Getting my star on the Walk of Fame!

After a long break, I am officially back on the racing circuit!  Yesterday morning, I ran the Hollywood Walk of Fame 10K, and it was wonderful!  The weather was very nice and the course ran along (surprise surprise) Hollywood Boulevard and the Walk of Fame, which was quite cool.  I also (sort of) set a PR for the 10K distance- 1:07:10, which is about a 10:45 pace.  The reason I say "sort of" is because I've never run a 10K race before, but in all of my unofficial ones (training runs/half-marathon splits) I always came in around 1:10, so I'm counting it!

And now, of course, the main event: pictures!

I had to drive all the way to Universal City on Friday morning to pick up my shirt and bib at the Expo....  a bit of a hike, but luckily the traffic wasn't too bad.  Unfortunately, I didn't get to hang around the Expo for very long because I had to get back and go to class!

The starting chute ran along Hollywood Blvd, right near Grauman's Chinese Theatre and the Hard Rock Cafe- what a great location for a race!

Hanging out in front of the Chinese Theatre before the race... starting to feel the nerves!

Waiting for the race to begin.... you can kind of see the inflatable red starting arch in the distance.  It was actually a pretty good turnout for an inaugural event!

The finish line arch, sporting probably the most iconic image of Southern California!   After I finished, I walked back along the course to get this shot.... it was just too cute!

"Beam me up, Scotty!"  P.S. Don't judge me.

Just a girl and her race bling, hanging out on Hollywood Blvd, basking in the glow of her PR!

A better shot of the medal... it's a Walk of Fame star!  You can't really read it here, but it says "Inaugural Hollywood 5K/10K"... now that I think of it, that was my second inaugural event this year!

In terms of an actual running recap, I'd say the race went pretty well, but it definitely wasn't perfect.  I felt a little undertrained (a little too much treadmill running and not enough hills), and as a result, it took me about two miles to shake out the cramps in my calves.  Not fun.  The air is also really dry here in LA right now, so my sinuses were absolutely on fire my the time I was finished!!  There were also some race organization issues (I'm guessing because it was an inaugural event): the water stops were all but chaos, and there were no mile markers or timing clocks along the course, though this kind of turned out to be a blessing in disguise.  

I had my running watch on (of course), but as soon as I realized that there was nothing along the course to gauge speed or distance by, I was immediately reminded of an article I read in Runner's World this month.  It basically said that runners should "unplug" every once in a while and just run... no watches, treadmills, GPS systems, nothing..... just run by feel.  It also made the claim that many of us will run faster when we do this, and that all of our gadgets actually inhibit us from running at our optimal speeds. So I promised myself I wouldn't look at my watch until I crossed the finish line, and that I would just run by feel.  And sure enough, as I came close to the end and I could see the clock at the finish line reading 1:10:30-ish (I had crossed the line around 4:00), I knew it had worked.  

My goal had been to come in below 1:10:00 (11:16 pace), and I beat that by nearly three minutes.  Human instinct: 1, technology: 0.

And with that, have a wonderful, happy, and joyous Easter!