"Give it what you have for today's conditions."

That's what I told myself as I tried to charge up the last and biggest hill of the 10k on Saturday. But I wasn't really charging. It felt like I was hanging on for dear life to a pace that was just above walking.

Even before the start of the race I was fighting excuses: I was up three times in the middle of the night with Liam. I'm still coughing and don't feel 100%. It's HOT. Why is it so HOT!? Some were legitimate reasons to doubt my ability to race at my best. Sleep is critical to performance and to a healthy immune system, which was (and still is) fighting some sort of cold. And the unusually warm temperatures had me sweating buckets during my warm up. These negative thoughts danced in my head for the first three miles of the race as I came to terms with the fact that this race wasn't going to be what I had wanted it to be.

As much as I wanted to Saturday's race to be a bit of a breakthrough the conditions were all but breakthrough conditions. So as I mustered up as much energy as I could to give it my all I had to push the doubts and the excuses (however legitimate) out of my head and put one foot in front of the other as fast as I could.

Saturday's race might not have yielded the overall time I thought I was capable of but it was a "win" for me on a few levels.

Run by Feel. I went into this race wanting to run by feel and I was true to that. I wore only my Timex Ironman watch on the stopwatch setting and hit the splits at each mile. I prefer to race this way. I race best when I race by feel, not by a pace goal on my watch. If I'd had my Garmin on and seen my pace I guarantee that I would have not paced myself well and probably ended up running slower.

Pacing. I paced well. I started slow and finished fast. My first mile was 7:48 and my last mile was 6:46. And in between my mile pace were commensurate with the hilly course.

Be comfortable with being uncomfortable. The first race after not racing for a while is a bit of a shock to the system. Pushing yourself for 45 minutes is...well, uncomfortable. Even more so when you're in the process of getting your fitness back. For me, there's a huge difference between racing when you're properly trained and racing "on the comeback." When I raced my 41:58 10K last year I had an entire marathon training cycle in me. Believe it or not that 6:45 per mile felt "easier" than Saturday's 7:24 pace. When you're fully prepared, even though it's hard, you feel "on top of" the pace, you can be tactical with your pacing and strategy. But when you're not prepared racing feels exceptionally hard, it takes every ounce of physical and mental strength to just keep moving forward, so racing tactically is out of the question. It will be a while before I get back to that point.

Embracing my Postpartum Body. I had planned to run in a tank top on Saturday but after my warm up realized I was going to be way too hot. So I ditched the tank top and decided to let it "all hang out." I'm not going to lie, I feel self-conscious of my postpartum body. At four months postpartum, I've still got an extra 10 lbs on me that probably won't go until I'm done breastfeeding. It's just the way my body does postpartum. I'm not exactly chomping at the bit to show off my softer, rounder self. But it is what it is, just like the conditions were what they were. I know I'll get there eventually, maybe not to the chiseled abs part. But I know the weight will come off if I keep eating healthy and training hard.

Saturday's race isn't necessarily and indicator of where I'm at with my fitness and it certainly isn't an indicator of where I want to be. Right now, I'm just passing through on my way to my goals.