10K at GGP

Today I completed a 10K race at Golden Gate Park. It was part of our training to go through a long run without pacers. I finished the race in 1 hour 15 minutes with my runner friends - Claire & Lisa. They were great! The weather was particularly warm and sunny which made it quite challenging. In fact, after the race, I didn't feel so well. This was the first race I felt my body just wasn't performing well at all. Usually after a 10 minute warm-up, I would feel charged and relaxed, but not this time. Apparently I wasn't hydrated enough 24 hours before the race so felt a bit nauseous at mile 5 and afterwards felt some chills set in pretty quickly. And, I was still enduring some heavy coughing which affected my sleep. To top it off, there were almost no parking at Java Beach at 8:00am Saturday, the meeting time!! The scramble to find parking wasn't nice at all.

Though I finished this 10K race, I felt this was truly not the best race. I did do some nice stretching with my running mates after the race which is always my favorite part. When I got home, I did another 45-minute stretching on my yoga mat which helped ease some tension on my lower back. And, rehydrated a lot to restore water into my system. REST was my aim the remainder of the day. And, my other runner friend Macy gave me a new book titled 'Chi Running' which includes some new set of stretching exercises that focuses on the form of running to prevent injury. I started reading it and liking it a lot!

My next race is the July 4th - 5K race at Golden Gate Park! These mini-races help me prepare for the BIG ONE! I'm going to keep on going. I discover that running helps me feel good, especially through the stress of academia and the pressures of modern life. The older I get, the easier I find it to lose focus on my own passion, my own values, my joy, my sense of purpose. 2009 has been quite tough so far.
Sometimes my decisions (we make 100's of them on a daily basis) become too marred with emotions and not enough logic and intellect. Therefore, writing helps that aspect of my decision-making. Running and yoga bring me back to ME - physically and mentally. Without them, I would be a mess. I hope these things will always remain in my life. Everybody needs a space for themselves to not only be better but to go back to in order to restore who they truly are. This world is beautiful but it really can't do that for us, I find we need to give this world our best.
Thanks for reading. ;-)