Positive Prevention 12k review (Training Tuesday)

Just like that, my race day is over! I know I said last week that I was just going to have fun with this race….and I totally lived up to that promise. It didn’t dawn on me until last Thursday that 12k is 7.5 miles. I never even hit 6 miles in training. And my legs were starting to give me issues.

Saturday evening we headed over to Highland Brewing to pick up our numbers and shirts for the Positive Prevention 12k. I love the shirt this year so much (and sadly got some grease on it on Sunday while cooking. The verdict is still out on the stain removal process.) The packet pickup at Highland was PERFECT and easy. My husband was able to have a beer, chat with friends, and the toddler could play on the outside patio with other kids and he didn’t get into any trouble.

Sunday morning, I was up at 5:30 and heading to pick Carol up at 6:15. It was so early, despite the time change. I had woken up in the middle of the night not feeling well. At one point, my throat was hurting and I was feeling congested. At another point I felt like I was going to throw up. (Today I have a cold, so that’s lovely.) Around 3 a.m. I wondered if Carol would be up for the 5k, rather than the 12k, but I sucked it up and we really said we were going to take it easy and have fun.

There were only about 80 runners for the 12k, so smaller than last year, which was kind of sad. I think the price of the race throws people off. It started about 5 minutes late, but once it started everything worked out fine. Sunday was a gorgeous day. I mean, look at the photos.

Just like last year, I’m glad I carried my own Gatorade. There wasn’t a water station until mile 4, and then another one around mile 6.

The first three miles were mostly uphill, and you could see that in our splits. Our second mile was the slowest of the 7. We did stop to take photos of ourselves a few times. (The picture of us in the mirror is similar to what we’ve taken in the past. It’s become tradition now. Also, ignore the shadows from my phone.)

The path around the house and gardens went by SO quick! It was a beautiful day and my photos didn’t do the estate justice (sorry, Biltmore!)

After we passed the gardens, we saw a sign for the bass pond. There was a landing down near the pond and I had never been down there (I have an annual pass, so I go to the estate and wander around quite a bit.) I asked Carol if she wanted to go look and she of course said, “sure.” So we detoured. I think we tacked on at least 5 minutes with our detour, but it was worth it. And it made us laugh the rest of the race.

When we were crossing the bridge at the pond, I took this photo.

SO PRETTY, right?? Fall colors hit us pretty late this year because our weather has been so crazy.

Around mile 5.5, my stomach was just not feeling great. And I had to reign it in during the last mile.

THEN we finished in 1:15! One hour, 15 minutes! Five minutes faster than last year! I have no idea how we managed that. We even detoured at one point, adding extra minutes. I mean, we walked down two sets of stairs and then back up them before getting back onto the course.

After we finished, we grabbed bagels, water and maple cookies, courtesy of Earth Fare (I will run for their maple cookies. For real.) Then we saw the sign for the massages, courtesy of the Spa at Biltmore.

Um. No need to ask me twice. We waited a few minutes and got our massages. (I wasn’t really sore later that day or on Monday. I attribute that to the massages.)

The race was, once again, well done. The runners were fantastic. The volunteers couldn’t have been nicer (and we were sure to thank as many of them as we could.) The race benefits the WNC AIDS Project, so while it is a pricey race (it was $50 for the 12k), it goes to a good cause.

And with that, I think I’m going to wrap up training Tuesdays for a while. I don’t have any races on my radar and I need to do more cross-training to give my legs a break.

What races have you run lately? Link up below, if you’re up for it! I would love to hear about your recent training or racing!