Running Through the Blossoms!

The first run of my self-proclaimed "Running Season" took place last Saturday - The Blossom Trial Run.  I was really looking forward to it.  There's nothing more satisfying (ok, there are things more satisfying like chocolate, a nice, hot, white chocolate mocha, Hawaii...but anyway, back to my story) like taking off when the race begins, and running with a huge crowd of people.  The energy that pulses through is so electrifying!  

I probably had not been running as much as I should have to prepare myself, but I tried to pace myself so I wouldn't just curl up in an exhausted blob after mile 1.  My Running Buddy took off at her own pace - remember, she's run a few marathons, so I enjoyed the time running by myself with my iPod and the beautiful blossoms along the route.  

Now at this point I have to share with you my greatest fear about running in races.  I actually have 2 - the first one is my fear of stumbling and falling down, spread eagle, 15 feet from the finish line because I've tried to give the last 50 yards an all out sprint!  My second fear is throwing up near the finish line, again, because I have tried to give the last 50 yards an all out sprint! So, as I came to the last 100 yards, and turned down the final street I saw that my hope of finishing 6.1 miles in under 1 hour was a forgotten dream, because according to my Garmin timer, I was at 1 hour, 3 minutes.  I didn't give an all out sprint since my time was already over my goal.  Nevertheless, I began to feel queasy!  Now, realize, I was not sprinting, I was feeling very relaxed, but as I saw the finish line, my hope was that I could get past it and not throw up amidst the cheering crowd of onlookers!  I had to make a decision - run as fast as I could through the finish and hope not to throw up in front of the crowd, or slow down with the hope of my queasiness diminishing before I got to the crowd.  I decided to run for it.  The man collecting the tags at the end was lucky he had a quick grab!  So as I left the finish line I looked for the nearest bushes, ran to them and up came the little bit of water I had consumed along the race route.  But here's the thing that made this episode not so bad...5 feet away from me was another racer losing it in the bushes!  I guess the old saying is true...those who run together, hurl together - ok, that's not really a saying.  But I felt great after that and there's the story of my first race of the season!!

I hope you at least enjoy the beautiful pictures!  And, does anybody know...does this kind of thing happen to runners very often?