My very first race recap, aw! Let’s begin, shall we?
John and I drove down to Ashland, Virginia Friday afternoon. We went to the YMCA to pick up our shirts, bibs, and timing chips (which happened to be attached to the back of our bibs). Then we drove over to the race start to check out parking for the next day. After a quick stop at Subway, we went to our hotel and relaxed. And by relaxed I mean took intimidating pictures in our new shirts…
I was super nervous the night before, mostly about my time. I told John that I didn’t even care if I walked as long as I got a good time (then I realized that I would still go crazy wondering what my time would’ve been if I hadn’t walked). I finally fell asleep around 11:00.
We woke up at 5:15, got ready, ate some peanut butter on bread, and headed out. I wasn’t too nervous anymore, just ready to get it going. There wasn’t a line for the port ‘a potties at all so I decided to check my bag first. It took all of 5 minutes but by the time I went back to the bathrooms, there was a really long line. We waited in line for 20 minutes and then it was almost time to start.
Typically they start the race with a real cannon but for whatever reason, this year they used a train whistle, which I didn’t even hear. We started off really well and the first mile seriously flew by. I couldn’t believe it when my Garmin beeped at me. Not long after that though, I got the worst side stitch I’ve ever had. I eventually had to walk for a while. A nice lady checked to make sure I was okay, and I ended up finishing not too far behind her.
The side stitch lessened in intensity but lingered for the rest of the race. Things were back on track but by mile six, I wasn’t feeling as good as I thought I should be feeling. Because of lovely hurricane Irene, it rained on us the whole time. Therefore, I never really felt too hot and hadn’t been drinking any water. I started taking advantage of the water and Poweraid stations. Also, due to the hurricane, we were running into the wind almost the entire second half of the race. By mile nine, I was ready for the race to end. I remember actually feeling kind of sad that I wanted it to be over. All this time I spent working for it and I just wanted to finish. My feet were extremely blistered and my legs felt dead.
Finally there was only a mile to go. I started thinking about the fact that I was about to finish a half marathon and got a bit emotional. Even typing this out now, I feel so happy (I may or may not have cried when we headed back to the car after the race). During the race, when I realized I wasn’t going to do as well as I hoped, I became super disappointed and was worried I wouldn’t be happy at the end, so it was really nice to have positive feelings. John stayed with me basically the entire race, despite being a speed demon compared to me, but when we rounded the corner and saw the home stretch I told him to go ahead. I finished not too long after him in a sprint (or what felt like a sprint at that point, John said I didn’t look too fast) with a time of 2:23:29.
You can’t tell I’m completely drenched in this picture, but I am. So this isn’t the best written race recap ever, but I just wanted to get it all out while it was still fresh. I think I would definitely run this half again. The course was mostly level, aside from some horrible hills around miles 9-11, and all the volunteers were SUPER great being out there in the rain. There weren’t many spectators, which was a bit of a downer, but I’m sure the weather had something to do with that. We were emailed our results less than an hour after we finished. All in all, not the performance I wanted but I feel like I learned a lot and will definitely improve next time. Yes, I just ran 13.1 miles and want to do it again. :)
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