Why is it that some races I get super pumped about, but with others, it feels like I'm just going through the motions?

For a while I had been looking forward to Saturday's 10K. It was on the Crofton Parkway, somewhere I've wanted to race for a while. It was a small race, so I knew it would be low-key and probably fun.

But my heart just wasn't in it. Maybe it was the heat. Maybe it was the hills, but from the moment my alarm went off, I just sort of felt like I was going through the race morning motions, without the pre-race excitement.

I still did reasonably well considering the evil combo of heat + hills. (59:26 according to Garmin, 59:31 according to the results. It wasn't chip timed.) That was good enough for my B goal.


I even managed to make some friends while running. Around mile 2.7 I chatted with a guy who raced in his USA soccer jersey. I had toyed with the idea of doing that (the jerseys are Nike DriFit, but I didn't want mine to smell nasty for the game) Before and after the race, we chatted with the BF's college roommate who was randomly doing the race too.

On any other day, that would have been enough to have me on cloud 9 the rest of the day. But Saturday I just wasn't in the mood.

In the end it was probably the heat that got to me. I kept thinking I could have ran a 10K at 5 a.m. and beat the heat. My negative attitude toward racing in the heat on Saturday makes me a little bit nervous for the Annapolis 10 Miler at the end of the summer.


I'm hoping that through a summer of training in the heat and humidity that come the end of August, I'll be more ready for it.

Race stats according to Garmin:
1: 9:12
2: 9:08
3: 9:35
4: 10:09
5: 10:28
6: 9:17
.18: 1:33