Back in December, my coworker Tim suggested we get some people from our office to register for the Cherry Blossom 10 Miler lottery.

It had been five years since I'd run the race, and I was kicking around potential spring races, so this sounded kind of perfect. I was on my winter break from school and excited that this race could be a good chance to get my running mojo back.



Wellllll if you've been reading at all the last couple months, you know that obviously didn't happen. Work + school + those three weeks of bronchitis back in February + this weird hip thing I've got going on basically killed my running completely.

So when race week arrived, I wasn't sure what I was going to do. I debated running the 10 on no training (which seemed like a good way to get hurt), dropping to the 5K or just bagging the whole thing completely.

On Friday, I was leaning toward a DNS. The weather Sunday morning wasn't going to be ideal, plus waiting in long lines at packet pick up didn't seem like a fun way to spend Saturday. But then Ashley texted and offered to pick up my packet for me.

And then the more I thought about it, the more I didn't want to completely scratch the whole race. So I opted to just do the 5K.



This actually ended up being an amazing decision for a lot of reasons.

First I got to meet up with Tim and Ashley super early before the 10 miler start and wish them luck. Then I got to go sit in my car out of the insane wind gusts to wait for the 5K to start. (It started an hour and ten minutes after the 10 miler start).

I ended up timing the walk back to the race village just in time to see the elites finish the 10 milers. It was a neck and neck race between an American runner and a Kenyan runner. The American runner ended up winning by less than a second, and it was the first time an American has won since the 90s so that was cool to watch.

As I lined up for the 5K, I noticed there were lots of people with 10 miler bibs on that had to drop to the 5K as well. The race started and the winds were kind of crazy. I couldn't feel my fingers for most of the race.

The course for the 5K runs along Independence Avenue with some really nice views of the monuments before crossing the Memorial Bridge and heading toward Arlington National Cemetery. The winds on the bridge were out of control. At one point gust of wind basically picked me up off my feet and almost threw me into the runner next to me.

The bridge is an out and back and seemed to go on forever with the wind, so I was reallllly glad to be off it for good and heading back to the finish line.

I finished in a time of 28:16, which actually wasn't too shabby.

I missed Ashley finish the 10 miler because she was a super speedster, but I managed to catch Tim coming down the final stretch, though spectator fail, I didn't get a picture (mainly because my fingers were frozen).



The three of us celebrated with some delicious brunch, and I brunched as if I had run the 10 miles.

So even though I wasn't able to run the 10 miler, I still consider it a successful day of racing, and I'm really glad I didn't DNS the whole thing.