Buffalo Stampede

In the beginning of September I ran the Buffalo Stampede 10 miler with Lauren and Leti. I had set out hoping to finish under 2 hours. I told Lauren ahead of time that we could run whatever pace and intervals she wanted, so long as we finished in that time frame.

This was my first year running this race so I didn't really know what to expect. The course was awesome because I grew up in that neighborhood; all of the houses were familiar and I knew exactly which street we were approaching. I knew the route like no other which really helped.

I ran with Lauren, Leti, and a few other SacFit members until mile 3 when we all slowly started falling into our own paces. Lauren had a bad headache in the beginning, so she and Leti hung back a little bit, but I was so set on making my time goal that I kept trudging along running right on pace to break the 2 hours. The whole time though, I kept Lauren and Leti in my line of sight because I was hoping that if they were able to see me, they'd stay motivated.

Around mile 6 or so, I decided I wanted to finish the race with Lauren, regardless of how long it took us. I kept thinking back to the WFF Half Marathon and how I promised Lauren I would run the next race with her; not that I felt like I had to, but rather I wanted to run together. At that point I was pretty certain that we weren't going to meet the 2 hour time goal, and I was slowly beginning to accept that.

After running a mile or so with Lauren and Leti, I took the lead and slowly began to speed up without telling them. Eventually, we weren't too far off pace to finish in under 2 hours! We had about 3 miles left of the race to make up time, and boy was I determined to do so! When I'm running my midweeks by myself, I typically run a comfortable 11 minute/mile pace. I ran the last 3 miles of this race though with a 9:30 minute/mile pace, and it felt great!

Long story short, all three of us finished in under 2 hours! My official time was 1:57:59.12. The only other 10 mile run I participated in was last year's Capital City Classic, from which I improved my time by over ten minutes, wahoo!

Because this was mine and Lauren's last race in Sacramento for awhile, we celebrated and said our final goodbyes in the parking lot afterwards. Several of our closest running buddies gifted us with going away presents. I wasn't expecting this at all, but I appreciate the sentiments and special tokens so much. When I joined SacFit last summer, I knew this was a great group, but this just further shows what an excellent group of runners this group is made up of.

It's only been two weeks since this race and I already miss SacFit and my fun running buddies, not to mention, I think I've only run once since then!