Sea Salted Bee: Ocean Road 10K - Road racing in Rhode Island

Last weekend, I ran the Ocean Road 10K in Narragansett, RI with the two ladies who inspire my lazy ass to get up and move every day. You see, for a New Year's resolution last December, my two friends convinced me to join them in the 2015 in 2015 challenge.

Since we signed up as a team, we are each expected to put in a minimum of 2.5 miles of running per day, every day for the entire year. Sounds easy but then again January-March are a beast to run in, so are the hot and humid days of July. Sprinkle in some major life events, week long business trips, and a cross country move, and it ends up being a recipe for a lot of time spent sitting. Harder than it sounds, unless you're a completely dedicated superwoman, like my friends are.

Since our wedding in August though, I have been really good at getting out there, hitting the trails, and running an average of 16 miles per week. So when I was back East in Spetember, feeling really great about my running, I was totally confident in signing up for the Ocean Road 10k the following month with these two super-stars. This time, I actually trained. 4 days a week I made it to the trails, ran hard and worked on hill speed and recovery.

The week leading up to the race was filled with contradicting forecasts of Hurricane Joaquin's landfall in the Northeast. Up until Friday morning, the forecast was looking dismal with high winds and soaking rain. It was beginning to look like round two of the 2009 Newport Half Marathon that we ran (in 34 degree snowy-rain mix)...I was now dreading this race too. But by Saturday the forecast called for dry windy weather.

Sunday arrived and we all woke up at 5 am, bundled up (the remnants of Joaquin's winds were pounding the coast) and all three of us hopped in the car and headed to Narragansett. We picked up our bibs, shed our excess layers and headed to our scheduled 6:30 am bus to the starting line at Point Judith Lighthouse.

We arrived at Point Judith, just as the sun rose over the water, at 6:45 am. Leaving us outside, at the mercy of the cold 45 mph winds until the 8 am start time. We huddled behind a low stone wall, a rather futile attempt to shelter ourselves from the wind.

As the starting gun went off at 8 am sharp, the clouds parted and the sun shone gloriously on our backs to warm us as we began the rolling hills of the race. A serious head-wind fought us for the majority of the race. At mile 3, though, my ankles, used to running on soft dirt trails, were screaming from the harsh pavement. I slowed from our pace and let the other two girls continue on while I recovered.

About 5 minutes later, I picked up the speed and set my sights on catching them. Then we rounded a bend, and I got distracted by sweeping views of the Atlantic, GORGEOUS houses, and the smell of ripe wild Concord grapes. Since I have gotten very used to stopping and snacking on wild blackberries along the trails, I just couldn't resist the snack! I'm pretty sure that other runners thought I was going to be ill, as I hopped over a little stone wall into the bushes. They were totally delicious and worth the 2 minutes added to my final race time (clearly I'm not the competitive one in the bunch).

In the end, I finished strong, at 1:00:35, got a free t-shirt and spent QT with my friends. Not a bad start to a Sunday morning.