Richmond McDonald's Half Marathon!

The difference between the Patrick Henry Half and the Richmond Half was like night and day. I could probably write a novel about Saturday and will come close with this post.

John and I spent hours in stop and go traffic on the way to Virginia. We hit up the expo first. After we picked up my bib, shirt, and goodie bag; we attempted to browse all the running stuff they had. Unfortunately there were a lot of people and a lot of stuff which meant looking at anything was difficult. Kind of a shame because there was a lot of cool stuff. We left and drove by the starting line on the way to the hotel. Once at the hotel, John was awesome and walked across the street to get Subway for dinner so that I could do nothing conserve my energy for the next morning. We ate and watched TV until we eventually fell asleep.

My alarm went off at 5:35 the next morning. Once we got outside to head to the race, we saw that it was 35 degrees. Ugh. I was wearing capris, tank top, and long sleeve to run in but had a jacket and sweats over that to stay warm before the start of the race. I was still freezing of course. They were giving out bandanas so I tied one around my neck to keep it warm, plus I thought it would make it easier for John to spot me in the crowds.

We hung out, drank water, I ate a fruit rope, and used the port-o-potties twice before I shed my extra clothes and headed to my wave (F). They let the waves go one at a time with some elapsed time in between. I thought this was great because it really prevented us from getting too bunched up. For some reason they did not start the full marathon and 8k like this.



After removing layers :(



Starting line. Fall is pretty.

Anyway, I crossed the start line and of course the first mile flew by. In fact, miles 1 through 5 were easy and fast. I warmed up after the first mile and tried to pick out different people to set my pace to (another good thing about starting in waves-I knew the people around me were around my pace). I was having some weird pain in the back of my leg kind of in between my ankle and calf muscle. At some points it was really bad and made me worry about the latter half of the race but it ended up not being an issue. Luckily my quad injury from the week before didn’t hurt at all until I was stretching at the end of the race.



Who has two thumbs and is having the best time ever
even though her legs feel like lead?



Somewhere between mile 5 and 6 I ate half of my fruit rope and we headed into a park. This was probably my least favorite part of the course. There were no spectators so it was pretty boring. The park was basically a series of hills on a narrow path which made passing people (especially on the downhill) very difficult. John and Kathy were supposed to be at the park and honestly, I was really looking forward to seeing them, but with all the roads blocked off and the traffic, they ended up not making it.

We exited the park between miles 7 and 8. It was here that my legs started feeling tired. A little before mile 9, I think I hit the wall. It really was no joke-I was going along, tired but moving, and all of a sudden it felt like I couldn’t run anymore and would never finish. I decided to use the whole ‘mind over matter’ trick and pretended I hadn’t hit anything. It’s actually kind of funny because around this point in the race I kept seeing cheesy motivational signs, only they don’t seem cheesy when you’ve ran 8 miles and have 5.1 to go. One that stands out said “All walls have doors-break through!” And so I kept focusing on the ‘door.’

I ate the rest of my fruit rope a little before mile 10 and focused on the finish. My Garmin was off from the race course. I think it was around .2 miles fast, so I wasn’t entirely sure what my time was going to be. At some points I thought I was going to do worse than my previous time but thankfully I didn’t start worrying too much. By mile 11 I realized I was going to make it in under 2:20. I was predicting 2:17. I knew the race finished on a downhill and was counting on that to help me but I kind of forgot about the uphill that preceded the downhill. By that point, however, I was too ready to finish to care about hills. I started seeing people who had already finished walking away with their medals and realized that was going to be me in 10 minutes.

As I headed down the home stretch I started hearing people screaming my name and I realized John and Kathy were somewhere up ahead. It made me SO happy and I am beyond grateful that they were there. I also truly cannot express how awesome it was to end on a huge downhill. I had it in me to finish strong even without the downhill but because of it, I finished fast. I tried to get some stretching in after I got my medal and space blanket but the shoot was super crowed. I grabbed a water and two bananas and then found John and Kathy. My clock time was around 2:29 and my Garmin said I ran 13.25mi so I had no idea what my official time would be until John got the text with my finish time of 2:16:37 which is a 10:25m/mi pace.



This is how I smile when my face is numb!



The medal weighs 1lb...yes I actually weighed it.



We watched the first and second guys finish the marathon and then headed back to the hotel for a quick shower before the drive home. I cannot say enough good things about this marathon. It was fun, well organized, good crowd support, and good course. Also, if I remember right, there were five bands along the way, including some Taiko drummers that were really awesome.

My knees were incredibly sore afterwards and the rest of me was sore in the days following, but I’m healing up nicely. Ready for the Galveston Mardi Gras Half in February!

PS-Here is my present from John for making him wake up early and stand out in the cold for almost 4 hours.....I mean...for running well.



His name is Winston.

PPS-Here is your present for getting through this very long post-fast Kenyan man who was 2nd place in the half marathon.


He's lucky I let him win.

 

Half Marathon Plan

I’ve been putting off writing this because I really couldn’t figure out what my plan would be for the longest time. Now I think I’ve got it. At least, I’ve got the ‘for now’ plan when my head will inevitably come up with something else while I’m trying to will myself to sleep tomorrow night.

So, the plan is, there is no plan. Just some things I want to remember when the gun goes off Saturday morning.

·         Run my race (Don’t go out too fast).
I have a very bad habit of freaking out when people pass me. I don’t know why, I have no pipe dreams of winning the race or even placing in my age group. I know I’m not even fast for a “normal person.” But still, I feel like I’m back in high school soccer running the mile and the need to be first kicks in. Not this time. I’m going to do my best to pretend I’m all alone on one of my long runs, and just do the damn thing.

·         Hydrate.
During my first half, I made the silly mistake of not really drinking anything until mile six. I guess I thought that the hurricane rain that was all around me would hydrate me via osmosis. That didn’t work out, which resulted in me realizing I was dying of thirst that couldn’t be quenched until I chugged a bottle of water-something that cannot happen during a race. I LIVED for the water stations for seven miles. Seriously, all I could think about after throwing that empty paper cup on the ground was the moment when I could grab another full one. Not a good way to spend more than half the race.

·         Have fun.
Not that my fist half wasn’t fun but…okay it really wasn’t that fun. Being around other runners=fun. Crossing the finish line=fun. But the actual running-not so fun. I think the key to this one is the first bullet. On my training long runs I turn into a motivational speaker and tell myself how freaking awesome I am every other step. Then come race time all I see are people passing me and I become mentally unstable and panic. That makes for not a lot of fun.

I’ve had issues with shin splits and a last minute soccer injury that’s kind of prevented me from finishing my training. But I know I’m ready. My runs this time around have been easier, I’ve felt stronger, and ran faster. My only time goal is 2:20. I know I have it in me to get a 2:15. But who knows what will happen on Saturday? If all else fails, I'll just focus on the junk food station at mile 9...

Well at Least the Good Outnumbers the Bad...

…Although I think that’s usually the way it goes when you’re unemployed and have a sugar daddy.

In all seriousness, there have been a lot of good happenings lately.

John and I carved pumpkins! Mine’s Jack Skellington and his is the Gears of War symbol. Unfortunately they rotted a week before Halloween, which is what happened last year. You’d think we’d learn.

We also dressed up for Halloween as the Black Widow and Wolverine. It was pretty fun.

We had not one, but two cute balls of fur in our house for a week.

I can do this:



I ran a fantastic 9 miles at a sub-10 minute pace. Look how awesome I look at the END of the run!

These came into my life...



I ran five miles on the treadmill which is double my previous longest distance run on the treadmill-or the dreadmill, which is more fitting. I actually kind of enjoyed it.

So yes, good things. I think I'm stocking up on them before winter hits and I start wondering what the point is of getting out of bed in the morning.