Cherry Blossom 10 Miler Recap

Hey y’all, I’m back! Hope you enjoyed Guest Post week on the blog — I have to say, I missed y’all 🙂 Seattle was amazing and exhausting and I’m happy to be home. I thought I’d finally get around to sharing my Cherry Blossom 10 Miler recap. I may have said this before, but I think that the ten mile distance is my clear favorite distance to run. It’s long enough to really get into your preferred pace but short enough that when you are at mile 5 you are half way done. Cherry Blossom is a lottery because it’s so popular but they have a great bib transfer system if you don’t get in the lottery.

Because I’m a Zooma Annapolis Ambassador (don’t forget to use code ANNAMB2 for 10% off the race – click here to sign up!), I volunteered to work the Zooma Booth at the Cherry Blossom Expo the day before the race. I loved working the expo table. I got to meet a bunch of fun runners (including a woman who recognized me from my blog — how cool is that!) and chat about Zooma. It was a fun way to pass the afternoon.

Race day dawned a bit chilly, but I stayed with my same outfit from my marathon the previous weekend. My Lesko Shimmel, stride shorts, arm warmers and calf sleeves were a great choice. I threw on a throw away shirt for the starting line and got ready to run. I started the race with my friend Tiffany. We picked a meeting place afterwards in case we got separated. We were planning to run together and I wasn’t planning on pushing it since I was fresh off a marathon. Best laid plans…

I felt great from the start. A little cold during miles one and two, but I felt strong and knew I could run faster than miles two and three.

mile 1: 9:56

mile 2: 10:35

mile 3: 10:31

mile 4: 10:13

mile 5: 10:01

Around mile five, I started to think that even though it wasn’t my intention, I could totally PR. I told myself if I could just hold my pace, I would for sure beat my Reston 10 Miler time.

mile 6: 10:11

mile 7: 10:09

mile 8: 10:16

At mile 8.5 I saw my coach from my winter training program. It was a surprise (although it shouldn’t have been) and really pumped me up for the rest of the race. I kept up my pace (basically) during that mile even though, I did stop to give her a huge hug.

mile 9: 10:07

mile 10: 9:40

Once I got to mile 9, I knew that I had less than 11 minutes left of running and just kept telling myself that I could push hard (what I like to call throw-up pace) for less than 11 minutes. So I did. There is a teeny tiny hill at the end of the race that doesn’t feel so tiny when you are closing in on mile 10. But even with that hill, mile 10 was my fastest.

I am proud of myself for not giving the race up when it hurt. I dug deep and pushed through the pain and was rewarded with a 3 minute PR! One week after a beast of a marathon. This race was confidence building and has me excited to start working towards a two hour half marathon!

As a total bonus, I saw SO MANY people I knew during / after this race. Jenny from Run Jenny Run found me after she finished and I was so pumped to meet her. Cyanne from Run Stretch Go also spotted me post race and it was awesome to meet her in person. My friend Tiffany managed to run the entire race — which was her #1 goal after not running much before the race. It was my friend Ally’s first ten miler and she absolutely killed it. I could seriously go on forever — such a great race!

Did you race Cherry Blossom? How’d it go?