Road To Chicago: Hollywood 10K Run

I am going to be one of the runners standing in line to cross the start and finish line at the Chicago Marathon this Fall. It is both exhilaratingly scary and exciting to think about that. When I get these 26.2 miles in my head, I sometimes freak out a little bit (just a tad!) and ask myself what on earth I am doing. But hey, if your dreams don’t scare you, you don’t dream big enough, right?

My first step in preparation for Chicago marathon was to actually start running. Pretty groundbreaking, right? I ran before, on and off, and I am pretty active. I exercise and play tennis, but when New Year started, I committed to really running and training to become a runner. I did my first 5K on February 27^th 2016 and absolutely loved the experience!

I did pretty well on time too (at least to my own standards and goals, I know that many runners can do 5K much faster than in 26 minutes!). 

My next goal was to run a 10K, which I decided to turn into “destination running”. I love traveling and I want to combine my old and new passion: traveling and running.

I am a big fan of Los Angeles. I am not completely sure what exactly draws me to the city, but I absolutely adore it. I love the beaches and surfing and beach biking, I love gawking at celebrities and at enormous, ridiculously expensive houses. I love the hikes and the museums and the vast array of food they have to offer.

Every April, for the last 5 years, the city has held the Hollywood Half Marathon, also with 5K and 10K editions. I chose to run 10K and somehow, strangely, convinced my best friend to run together with me. She decided to do the 5K version of this run (surprise and spoiler, she is still my friend!) :)  

I got great tips and advice from my running coach (yes, I actually started going to running classes to get better at running) how to prepare for the race. I ate more carbs than normal during the week leading to the race, loaded up on water and tried to take it easy overall. When my body was saying “enough, thank you” during that week, I actually listened and didn’t push myself.

On a Friday before the race, we were already exploring a shockingly gloomy and rainy LA and went to Hollywood Reservoir to do our “shake off run”, aka run a bit to prepare for the race, but don’t overdo it. I am soooooo very excited to run in the rain as you can see… 

Next morning, we woke up bright and early (look at our unsuspecting beaming faces!) and started getting ready for the race.

 

I did not want to eat, but knew very well that I have to unless I plan to pass out on mile 3 or 4. 10K is not a super long run, but it is at the same time not a stroll down the street, so you need your fuel! (chicken sandwich was what I felt like eating at 4.30 in the morning…)

There were TONS of people there for the race (Hollywood Boulevard where the race started is not an extremely wide street, so it pretty tight). I made a mistake of not standing too close to the start line (I didn’t want to be rude and elbow my way through) so I started about 15 minutes after the gun, and had to kind of fight my way through the crowds at the very beginning.

I had my Apple Watch for my pace and my music on, and I just loved every minute of running on Hollywood Boulevard and enjoying the relative calmness compared to hustle and bustle of it during more normal hours (aka not 6AM).

I had two goals for the race: to run without stopping and to finish with time under an hour. I managed to do both, and I loved every second of getting to my goal. I don’t know why but I kept smiling while running, feeling very lucky and excited to have this opportunity to enjoy this race. We met with my friend at the finish line where we were greeted with medals and assortment of recovery snacks and drinks, which were very welcome!

 

 

I felt pretty tired but not as tired as I thought I would be. Here is me celebrating my run and my stats. I know they are not the best in the game, but I am very proud of what I can do as beginner runner (I finished up 10^th in my group  (age and sex) and 118^th out of 2,080 overall).

There were obviously some other exciting things happening in LA after our run. We recovered a bit, cleaned up and went for an amazing brunch at the Griddle Café. If you are ever in LA, you have to eat there!!

Tomorrow is Monday, and I am starting my half-marathon preparation! The word marathon, even though it will only be half of it, still scares me a lot, but I am very excited about this challenge, I am sure it will be an excellent adventure!