Cherry Blossom 10 Miler

What a gorgeous day for a run. I got up in time to make it down to the National Mall by a little after 7. The race was starting at 7:40. I got all my stuff straightened out, dropped off my gear bag and had a small snack and a bottle of water before the race started. It was in the low to mid-40's waiting on 15th next to the Washington Monument but as you can see in the pics it was a beautiful morning. The race was well organized and even with the thousands of people running (the results show almost 14,900) it started on time.

The course is a nice course. It starts next to the Washington Monument - runs down Independence to Memorial Bridge, across and back on the bridge, up Rock Creek by the Kennedy Center and then heads back Rock Creek, down Ohio, back on Independence and then all the way down to Hains Point before returning to the Monument. There are great views of the memorials, the river and of course the cherry trees. There were lots of people cheering on the sidelines and lots of volunteer support (Thanks to the volunteers). I was a bit worried coming into the race as I had not trained a lot. My vision when I first signed up was a 90 minute race. As it got closer and I was not running a lot I started to think - "OK - maybe a 100 minute race would be ok". In the end I guess I was motivated by all the wonderful people racing and cheering and I finished in 88:09 (5249 of 14893). I was very happy with that result.

I talked to Margaret at work about the race, her and her husband ran it as well, and it was hard to determine if we would do it again simply because it was such a perfect race day that it would be hard to match. I will see what next year brings. In the meantime I am motivated to keep running and racing. What can I say - "It's FUN"

..... cu