James Joyce Ramble 10K

Hey guys! Happy Monday! How are you? Did you have a good weekend? I had quite a good weekend. Yesterday was the James Joyce 10K that I had been training for. I woke up to a beautiful day and knew it was going to be a good one. :)

After some coffee and a pre-race breakfast of a peanut butter sandwich with dates and chia seeds, we made our way to Dedham. I was surprised to see just how much was going on there. The race started at the Endicott Estate where runners could pick up their numbers and peruse a number of awesome vendor/sponsor booths.

The race started at 11 and I was off before I knew it!

Despite having to walk for quite a ways once the gun went off, I had a fast first mile – clocking in around 8:30. I was a bit worried that I might have been going out a bit too fast but I felt good, the sun was shining, and hey, 6.2 miles is a heck of a lot shorter than the 13.1 miles of my last race.

The second mile went by even faster than the first and I continued to maintain a great but comfortable pace until about mile three when the hills started to get to be brutal! I wasn’t sure what to expect of the course and it definitely proved challenging. A lot of up- and down-hills that were no walk in the park. I managed to stay positive and truck on through; all the while remembering that I was like the little engine that could on the uphills and not to get too ambitious on the downhills. :)

There were a ton of inspiring and supportive spectators lining the beautiful course that weaved through neighborhoods and school campuses, in addition to volunteers reading excerpts from James Joyce’s literature (how neat is that?). All of that, and an awesome post-race lunch meetup with the lovelies Melissa and Steph definitely kept me going.

Before I knew it, there was only a half mile left! While I’d like to say I sailed through it, the last half mile was super challenging for me. It felt so long and I was beat! I made it and finished strong, though.

Post race, I did lots of smiling, sunning, recapping, people watching and stretching on the lawn of the estate while my companion enjoyed the free Harpoon beer (!). It was such a perfect day for a race.

While I’m really proud of my official time (51:29), I think it was just the day, the race, and the surrounding festivities that made it so great. I’m definitely going to make the James Joyce Ramble a regular. :)