2014 Bridge to Brews 10K

April 6th, 2014 – This was my first time running the Bridge to Brews 10k and my first 10k race overall. I was a little worried about being able to finish due to my calf being re-injured during the Shamrock 15k. I thought I was completely healed prior to the Shamrock race, but I guess I didn’t heal 100%. I have a few micro tears that give it a little bit of pain every once and a while sine the 15k. I decided that I was not going to push myself to finish this race and would let my body tell me when it was time to stop running and walk. I did this as I do not want to aggregate the injury any further as I have the Spartan Beast in 2 months that I want to be 100% for.

I met up with a bunch of friends a little before 8am to run the race with then checked into the swanky VIP section (I totally recommend this for the Bridge to Brews race. 1000% worth it!), dropped my bag off and headed to the starting area. As we were getting read to start, I fired up my running apps, Charity Miles, Run Keeper, Nike Running and Zombies, Run! I must be entertained while running!

I told myself that I wanted to make it to 2 miles before I gave myself the option to walk, of course if I started to feel pain, I would simply stop wherever I was.

I had to take a self shot on the bridge! I'm not sure when I will be able to run on the car portion of the bridge again!
I had to take a self shot on the bridge! I’m not sure when I will be able to run on the car portion of the bridge again!

Running through Portland on the streets and bridges was an interesting feeling. It seemed like half of the run was on the wrong side of the road. Every time I saw something that I thought was interesting I took out my smart phone and took a picture. I really wasn’t focused on finishing the race with my best time as I knew that I may have to walk at any moment. I think that took off some pressure and I was able to just have fun.

After the 2 mile mark I said to myself, “Lets make it to 3 miles and see how we are doing.” That pattern continued until I hit 5 miles when I said, “there’s just a mile left, lets finish this.” Finish this I did. I ran 5 minutes and 20 seconds faster than my previous 10K time! I did NOT expect that to happen!

After getting my bag from the VIP bag check, I noticed that I was also in line for the after race food, that was complimentary for the VIPs (yea, I paid for it by registering as a VIP, but damn.. that was nice!).

VIP has it's privileges and boy were they tasty!
VIP has it’s privileges and boy were they tasty!

I piled on the food and a slab of peanut butter onto my plate and grabbed a mimosa before sitting down to eat. With the food now gone in the flash of a few seconds I grabbed my celebratory beer and headed down to the common area to meet up with the rest of the group to chat about the race, share more beers and take lots of pictures!

What a fun race!

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.