I ran a 10k this past weekend. I’m embarrassed to  say that it was my worse race ever. Worse than my time running a half marathon with no training. It was hot, I had literally one hour of sleep prior to the race. I was hungry and thirsty throughout the race. I spent most of the time pacing myself against another runner, it was only at the end that I realized that she was part of my running group. I was so delirious from the lack of sleep, hunger pains and thirst that I didn’t recognize her. I finished only to collect a medal, one that I’m not proud of. This time last year I was running at a faster pace and well conditioned for the heat. Boo! Time to get serious.

As with every dark cloud, there was a silver lining. I got a picture with the winner of the 10k. He ran the darn thing in 29 minutes. This was after his 16 hour flight to New York. At 29 minutes, I was lugging my way past mile 2, giving myself a pep talk “two down, only four to go, you can do it” Ha!

HE runs up to 140 miles a week. He ran his first marathon in May, it took him 2 hours 12 minutes. I told him that my best half marathon time was a little under 2 hours. He chuckled at that. I asked him for running tips, he said I needed to run more.

He’s right. He’s so right. So my July challenge: run more, drop the 5 lbs I need to drop to increase my pace. I’ll never run a marathon under 3 hours, but I do have my goals.

You should get to know the winner of this10K race. He’s from Kenya, he runs to raise awareness of the global arms control treaty.

I’m off to run.