Hal Higdon seminar and Spring Thaw 10-miler

I just wanted to start with a little bit about the Hal Higdon seminar I went to last night. He’s a really good and interesting speaker (although he did tend to get off track when answering people’s questions) and I’d recommend going to see him if you get a chance! The event did not go quite as planned, as over 300 people registered for it and at the scheduled start time, there were only 10 people there. Apparently a moving van got stuck on the road leading up to where the seminar was being held. Eventually about 50-75 people trickled in. My favorite thing that Higdon talked about was actually how, while running 7 marathons for his 70th birthday, he came in second-to-last in a marathon that he had won when he was younger. It just made me think about how everyone who gets out there and runs is a runner and should be proud of themselves for finishing – whether they’re first or last. After the seminar I bought one of his books for him to sign and got a picture with him :)

The race this morning went pretty well. It was still snowing when I left and was sporadically snowing during the race. I got there at an hour and a half before the start and it took me over 30 minutes to find parking and get to the start line. Ugh. Fortunately, the rest of it was better organized. I got my chip, used the bathroom and then found Maria and Bernadette. We went out to the start line and met up with Valerie there. Val and I decided to run together, since we were both planning on using it as an easy training run and were just thankful for the opportunity to get 10 outdoor miles in without huge piles of snow and ice patches! I had originally wanted to run the first lap (5 miles) easy and then run the second one at half marathon pace, but I ditched that idea early on. I just wasn’t feeling it, although we did end up running the second half at a faster pace than the first (except for the mile that I stopped to stretch because my hip was starting to feel funny…)

After the race there was soup, pizza and hot chocolate! I also stuck around for a free massage and while I was in line, the race director (who also owns a running store) came over and gave me a coupon for a free pair of smartwool socks at his store! I’m not sure what happenjavascript:void(0)ed, but he had a stack of coupons for various things and just started giving them out at random. I’m totally excited about it :)

Overall a fun time and an automatic PR since this was my first 10-mile race!