Virginia Is For Lovers 14K

Last February I ran the Virginia Is For Lovers 14K in Virginia Beach. C and I headed down on Friday night. We went to the Red Star Tavern for dinner and I had mac and cheese with fried chicken. It was REALLY good. My other friend that was running the race and her husband and another friend met up with us there and we hung out for a bit before heading back to the hotel to get some sleep.

I was a little worried about the race because two weeks before it I had the flu and bronchitis. I finished my z pac on Monday but had a funky cough all week that veeeeery slowly went away. A 14K is 8.7 miles and that's not something you want to run when you have bronchitis. Luckily I was pretty much over it so it didn't go so bad. I also had a huge boost of confidence when I got my bib and saw that I was in corral 1. CORRAL ONE!!!!

I have never been that far forward in a race! I was determined to start with my corral so I pushed through the crowd and hopped fences to get in. C thought I was crazy. You have to be a little crazy to want to run miles upon miles for fun.

Anyways the race wasn't too bad. We ran around the Virginia Beach Amphitheatre which was pretty cool. It had snowed at the beach a few days before so there was still ice on the ground and as it got warmer out it got muddy. So we had to run through some mud and slide on some ice but for the most part it was good. The first few miles were pretty good but then I started to get winded. I had to walk a bit but I found that as I was walking I started coughing so I kept running to keep from coughing.

I finished in 1:39 which isn't too bad for not having run that far since early December. I had to skip out on my free food and beer though because we had to rush back to the hotel to check out. The after party was inside anyways which means it was loud and cramped. The shirt was a long sleeved technical which I really like and the medal was pretty cool too. Each lady that finished the race also received a carnation. :-) Hey, it's the little things.

My pretty medal that is also a bottle opener :-)

This was my 20th race. I have been running for almost 4 years now. Wow. That is hard to believe. I've done it though. I've set goals and I've stuck to them. I've worked hard and pushed myself to do things I never thought I would do. I've proven to others and to myself that I can set goals and achieve them. I'm pretty proud of myself.