My First 10 K race in Taiwan

The start

When I sort of had an idea that I would be back in Taiwan in October, I signed to up to run a 10K race in Taipei sponsored by the Ministry of Finance. The race would start in front of the Presidential Palace en route to Shin-Sheng bridge, which has never been opened up to pedestrians before. Needless to say I was excited at the opportunity to race in my home country and have a family member there to see me cross the finish line for the first time.
The race started promptly at 6am, which meant I had to wake up at 5am. This was after having celebrated my birthday 2 days before. I was out the door by 5:20am and arrived there 20 minutes before the start. I was a little annoyed to see that there weren't different wave starts. Having about 5000 start all at once is a little chaotic not to mention it affects the finish time. There were also people that you could see have never raced in their lives before. Those people need to stay in the back!!!
The weather was perfect. I was a bit worried because when I went to bed it was rainy pretty hard outside. The morning was cool and a bit cloudy. It took me about a mile and a half to finally get my heart rate up and rhythm going. It was almost surreal to run on the bridge and see the surroundings in a different perspective. The humidity and air quality though was a bit hard on me. I had thought the DC area was humid, but Taiwan takes the level up another notch. Pollution has always been a problem in Taipei. These 2 factors affected my breathing about half way through the race. But in the end I endured and finished in 50 minutes. Racing in Taiwan was definitely different. Even though there were people cheering on the side, they just didn't seem as upbeat. I tried to pump myself and the crowd up as I pass through them.

What a facial expression

I passed through the finish line and was able to find my mom in no time.
I had previously predicted that I should be able to finish in the top ten of the female 20-29 age group. So I stuck around to wait for the results for the different groups. I went up to the volunteers by the stage area and found out that I had finished 6th in my age group! I was to wait around for the awards ceremony. I hadn't expect to get anything other than maybe a small monetary reward.

In front of the Presidential Palace

With my finish certificate

They had us line up and finally I got up to stage to collect my trophy and reward of NT$1000, which is about US$30. I felt really excited, cause I have never been on stage for an award or anything. I couldn't have given myself a better birthday present. It was also great that my mom was there to see me. I hope I made her proud.

Waiting to get on stage
With my fellow top finishers
The trophy!