My goal is complete. I didn’t race as well as I wanted, so I’ll chalk this one up to a character builder. But I pushed through and finished.

Even though my training started out strong, I couldn’t seem to make time for it over the last few weeks. And then my kindergartener shared her cold with me.

I was still hacking today as I hit the race course but I cranked up my music and tried to settle in for some me time.

The hill repeats and speed work I did manage during my training definitely helped as the hills didn’t feel as hard as I expected. I had a good race until mile five when it fell apart. I’ll spare you the embarrassing details. But I want to thank the wonderful couple who live along the race course who helped me out.

I was once again reminded of my love/hate relationship with running. I think I’ll stick with 5ks for a while and try to do at least one five mile run a week so when it’s time to prep for next year’s race I’ll be in better shape.

There’s always next year.

P.S. A 12k is supposed to be 7.4 miles, and mine wasn’t the only run tracker to measure the course at 7.75. So I survived 12k + a bonus third of a mile. 🙂