charity chase half marathon race report

This was totally brutal!

On Friday afternoon, I scampered to turn off my computer and drove about four hours up to Hickory, NC for the Charity Chase Half Marathon on Saturday morning. My parents live on the other side of Charlotte, near Pinehurst, and my mom drove over to spend the night and go to the race with me. We got all checked into our hotel and drove just down the road to the packet pickup which was at another hotel. It was a pretty small affair and easy to navigate through picking up a map, bib, and tshirt. The race was sponsored by Fleet Feet and they were also giving a reusable shopping bag and a pair of Balega socks to all the runners. The socks felt pretty nice, but I gave them to my mom (“Thanks for driving three hours to see me, how about some…free socks?”) so I can’t comment on their awesomeness.

Now, I don’t know how many people reading this have been to Hickory, but looking at a map of this place was insane. All the streets are numbered, but are short and curved and not in a grid, plus there are all these 14th Street Ave, 3rd Street Drive, 3rd Street, 5th Avenue Place, 5th Avenue, etc. Really similar names if you’re not familiar with where you are going, or apparently even if you’ve lived there a long time because we couldn’t find anyone who could show us how to get to the starting area in Union Square on the map. It ended up being just a couple of turns. We also tried to drive a little of the course to see what it was like, but only made it about three miles before making a bunch of wrong turns and giving up. Down a hill, up a hill, whatever. We lost a street marking for the route and decided our efforts would be better spent on finding somewhere to eat dinner. That took a while, too.

Anyway, the race started at 7AM and I woke up at 5:30AM mostly out of fear of multiple alarms and wake-up calls going off at the same time. I probably should have been more concerned that when I woke up at 5:30 in the morning, it was already 68 degrees outside. It felt pleasant when we got to the starting area, which had tons of easy parking. The announcer said they had 600 people registered this year and I noticed about 400 finishers on the results compared to 300 last year, I think. The race is a charity fundraiser (obv) for a bunch of groups in Hickory who man-and-woman all the water stops and receive a portion of the money raised, which was $40,000 this year. This race has to be doing something right if they’re generating proceeds like that from such a small race, especially when they’re still delivering the “nice to have” perks like chip timing, tech shirts, etc.

Before the race, a tiny petite person wearing a Brooks ID uniform came up and introduced herself (and her husband). Kristin registered for the race on Wednesday night and drove from the other end of the state to get there. She was super nice and the first other Brooks ID person I’ve met. I have to mention that she was very unassuming and I was totally impressed when I saw the race results and she was the female winner in 1:28:xx. Woah!

Well, now I have ruined the suspense of this race report because you know I did not win. JK. I think I thought it would be cooler in western North Carolina in June or something, but the heat and humidity this morning were unbelievable. I checked and it was 82-97% humidity between 7AM and 9AM. The course started off downtown, went down a large hill (don’t worry, you’ll re-visit the uphill), up a hill, and turned into some nice shady residential areas before plunging into a newer subdivision where trees are of minimal importance or value. Take another turn onto a road, run through some other residential stuff (?) with some rolling hills, and then onto a bike path. The bike path had some decent little hills and a lot of turns so you couldn’t see what was coming up until you were there. This was around mile 5 and I was already feeling it pretty bad. I was carrying a plastic water bottle that I planned to drink until it ran out and I could throw it away and get water at the rest of the water stations. They had water every two miles on the first half of the course and I think every mile in the second half.

When we got off of the bike path, a guy said to someone else, “the worst of it is over.” Total lie! I saw him after the race and he said he was just trying to be encouraging or something to that effect. We went through some semi-residential semi-crappy area…if you’ve been to North Carolina you probably know what kind of place I am talking about, where half of the stuff is old and possibly abandoned, but maybe not. I hit the halfway point just around an hour and figured, sweet, if I can pick it up a little I will be done in an hour, no bigs. I should mention that this whole time I was just barely running 9 or 9:30 miles. I was not really trying to run faster, but usually the default speed is a little better for the first few miles. Around mile seven was one really, really long medium incline hill that just kept going. It was another ugly area of town, no shade, long hill, and earned a super thumbs down from me. It was crazy hot and I was sweating like a beast.

At 8.5 miles, we passed back through Union Square to make another loop on the other side of town. I saw the second place male crossing the finish and thought how nice it would be if I ran faster. I also saw my mom for a second. At mile nine, I decided to refill my water bottle instead of junk it because I was so hot. You’d have to pry that lukewarm 13 ounces of water out of my swollen, clammy dead hands before I’d give it up. I forgot to turn the auto pause off on my Garmin before the race, so I won’t have to-the-second stats for this phenomenal run of mine since it stopped while I was refilling. It took a solid 45 seconds to a minute to fill up and now I know why they are so darn stingy with the water in the tiny cups.

Sadly, I had to leave the nice ladies at the water station and continue up another treeless hill towards Lenoir Rhyne College. My mom asked if the campus was nice, but to be honest I’m not sure if we ran through it or not. Here at UGA, we like to plaster things with arches and bulldogs and cheap drink specials as to signify our immediate and domineering collegiate presence, but there was nothing so obvious that I noticed around LRC.

There was this one really terrible hill before the mile 11 water stop and this volunteer ran down the hill, starting being all “you can do it!” and ran up the hill with me. It was freaking awesome. Where was she for the other two hours I needed her?!? Shortly after this, we headed back down what was the first hill in the race. Even running downhill, I was hitting 10:00 miles. It was rough. The mile 12 water station was at the bottom of the last big hill. Even though there was only a mile left at this point, it would be nice if they could scoot it up the hill for some extra motivation to tackle the hill. I needed the motivation because I was running near this guy with the most obscene pair of shorts that I have ever seen in my life. I do not know what they were or what they were supposed to be, but every jingle jangle was visible. I’m linking a picture, but only because his number is obscured and you don’t wear shorts like that if you want to fly under the radar. Back into downtown, lots of happy people cheering, and the finish line. I finished in 2:09:24. Not my best and not my worst, but definitely the toughest to finish. The course was difficult but not impossible, but combined with the weather this one was a bruiser. I finished 10-15 minutes slower than I expected and felt like I was just on damage control to deal with the heat from about mile 7 onward.

I’d love this race if it were in another month of the year. I think all my half marathons have been between September and February, so June is going out on a bit of a limb weather-wise. They had a lot of food and drinks at the finish area, and you also got a free ticket to see the Hickory Crawdads MLB team play that night, which is awesome! I did not use mine because I wanted to get home in time to watch my old team, the Classic City Rollergirls, play Augusta. My mom and I checked out the farmer’s market that was going on just next to the finish, then checked out of our hotel, got a coffee, and headed our separate ways.

terrapin 5k plus one more mile

Somehow I ended up with a run-only week. School was kind of hectic and made going to the gym/spin classes not very practical. Tomorrow is another of those days, but I have my proposal defense on Wednesday (where you present your proposed thesis project to your department and people comment/critique) and after that there’s only a few more weeks in the semester. Having my last presentation done will be a big weight off, but I’m not finished editing it yet.

Yesterday I ran the Terrapin Beer 5k plus one more mile. I ran it last year; I think I need to branch out because I tend to like just doing something I know I’m going to like already. It was a bit of a sad day as I’d learned on Friday that Will Chamberlain, of Classic Race Services had passed away in his sleep overnight. Will was the race director for most of the local Northeast Georgia races and just a super nice guy. I didn’t know him personally (though I felt like I did), just through his races where he was always going out of his way to be friendly and encouraging to everyone. The race at Terrapin would have been his race and he always starts with his trademark, “have a good race and have a safe race,” which someone had written on a sign at the starting line. It was also a little sad to finish since he wasn’t standing at the finish line cheering people in while recording their finishing time. The race itself was pretty uneventful. It’s in the afternoon, so it was hot (though not as bad as last year when it was in the 90s, I think). There was a much bigger crowd this year as well. I finished in 35:35, slightly faster than last year.

I had a half of a half (that would be a quarter) of a Pumpkinfest and gave the rest of my beer tickets away so I could go watch roller derby/tailgate (and drink beer…). Mega tired today, maybe going to do a short run when the sun goes down.

4/4 sunday – off
4/5 monday – 7.0 miles, 63:21
4/6 tuesday – 3.03 miles, 26:15
4/7 wednesday – 8.02 miles, 73:11
4/8 thursday – 9.25 miles, 85:00
4/9 friday – 10.16, 90:54
4/10 saturday – 4.18 miles, 35:35

total miles run: 41.64
total time run: 6:14:16
total cardio: 6:14:16

the little race that could – run the reagan half marathon

I wrote last night about how we were getting snow and I wasn’t too sure if this race was going to happen or not. I’m impressed that the race organizers decide to delay two hours instead of cancel, and then delayed another two when it was clear that starting at 10AM wasn’t going to be enough. The organizers did a great job of making it happen. All of the races ended up starting at 12PM or 12:15PM. That is my kind of race! Or it would be if I didn’t wake up at 6:45AM trying to figure out if I was going to get down there or not. I made it without incident, but drove like a grandma and it took me an hour and forty minutes to go sixty miles. That might be the first time I have ever taken longer to drive somewhere than Google Maps estimates.

I’ve been to Snellville before, but just briefly for a roller derby practice (and that might have been Lawrenceville). The race is held on a closed highway. You run 6.55 out, turn yourself around, do an optional hokey pokey, and run back. Ronald Reagan Parkway is about the least scenic place I’ve ever been in that there’s just nothing whatsoever to look at. No natural beauty, no stores, no billboards, just pavement. The snow probably helped out a lot, too. There are also unrelenting rolling hills. Nothing too huge, but consistent and you get to run down whatever you run up. The wind was pretty solid and brutal on the first half, but had some joyful little bursts at my back in the last mile or two. That is about it for details on the course.

Due to my insanely slow speed of driving, I got there 20 minutes before the start and they didn’t have my race number (I knew that would happen because things like that always happen to me). Filled out a new form, went to the bathroom, and hopped into the starting area. Since I was “tardy to the party” as it were, I didn’t really reevaluate what I was wearing when I left my house two hours before: tank top, long sleeve, another long sleeve, vest, full length tights, knee socks, and regular socks, plus gloves. I think it was in the 30s. I should have taken off the second long sleeve, but I didn’t have time to figure that out and do it before the race started, so I was a little toasty. My feet were also wet before the start, but that didn’t bother me until the eighth mile or so (cue Eminem music) when they felt really, really wet.

I did not have a time goal for this race. Mostly I wanted to just run and feel comfortable, which I think I did, and I didn’t really want “comfortable” to take me over two hours. I really like telling myself I’m only going to be doing something for a certain amount of time. The road was surprisingly clear. The water stations were mostly under overpasses, which was kind of a weird decision given the already present ice/people dumping water cups and making ice (I did this once and then realized that was a bad idea…full disclosure). Several of the aid stations only had one person working them and I’d guess they had a lower volunteer turnout due to to the road conditions around Atlanta, so thanks to those people who left their cozy houses to come volunteer in the cold. I ended up finishing in 1:58:59 (Garmin time). Something weird was that my Garmin was reading about .05 long on the course for the first half, and then pretty much immediately after the turnout at the mile 7 marker, it was .05 short. I ended up with 13.04 on the Garmin. Whatever, I’ll take it. I’ll update the post when I have actual results.

Overall, it was a nice, low key race. It’s hard to say what it would be like at full force in decent weather, but I did notice tons of people wearing shirts from past years, which reflects well on the race. Course is pretty plain. I would say a little challenging, but not too much so; maybe more fun with a buddy. The shirt is okay (white long sleeve with the logo) and the medal is pretty cool.

Basically, not super exciting, but it was a fun way to get my first 13 miles in and I’m glad it wasn’t canceled. I drove back to Athens and hopped on the treadmill for the remaining seven. I forgot to bring a change of pants and had to wear my tights and felt like a goober. I did remember an extra pair of shoes and socks and rescued my shriveled feet from their watery dungeons, but I’m not sure they have forgiven me yet. Olympic ski jumpers and speed skaters provided some distraction. I think I have to study for my statistics exam now. Bummer.

Here’s what I did this week. I wrote all of this week’s dates as last weeks in my notebook. Dur. This was not the best week. I was stuck in a funk and couldn’t seem to motivate myself to do anything, including exercise on a couple of days. I couldn’t get to any spin classes on days that I needed to run. I did pull my snowshoes on Friday night and take Heidi out for a walk down a road/driveway that goes around the pasture behind our house.

2/7 sunday – nada
2/8 monday – 30:00 swim class
2/9 tuesday – 7 miles, 61:57 – avg pace 8:51
2/10 wednesday – 10 miles, 89:47 – avg pace 8:59 + 40:00 swim class
2/11 thursday – 6.57 miles, 60:00 – avg pace 9:08
2/12 friday – nothing
2/13 saturday – run the reagan half marathon – unofficial 13.05, 1:58:59 – avg pace 9:07 + 7.0 mile treadmill follow up, 65:27 – avg 9:21

total miles: 43.62
total run time: 6:36:10
total cardio: 7:46:10

*Edit: here are my official finishing results.
chip time: 1:58:56:07
avg pace 9:05
39/102 female
6/13 age group

twilight stroll by the granite bowl 5k

Brr. It has been really cold here for about a week. We rarely have temperatures below freezing, let alone daytime highs below freezing, so it’s been an adjustment. I knew I’d have a hard time getting up in the morning to run a race in the cold, so I opted to do this nighttime 5k instead. I ran this last year and was super cold, but I think it was around 40F that night. Last night temperatures were in the 20s and below, probably the coldest I’ve ever run in! I don’t know that I would describe it as exhilarating, but it’s better than 90F.

I set up my playlist and Garmin, then made it over to the Elberton Theater to register by around 8pm. When I went out to sit in the heat of my car, I noticed my Garmin was not responding to anything and was stuck on a time about ten minutes ago. Has this ever happened to anyone? No amount of messing with the bezel or buttons was getting a response, so I figured I was just going to have to run without a watch since my other cheapie watch wasn’t in my gym bag where I thought it was. Then I zoned out a little while jamming on both side buttons and it reset. Woop woop! The Garmin (it’s a 405) is really nice to have and I love the accuracy and feedback, which makes me all the more mad when it doesn’t function properly (IE not responding, bezel freakouts/barely being sweat resistant, taking a really long time to get a satellite signal). Also, they never sent me my $50 rebate from when I bought it at the beginning of the summer. I think I need to make some calls about that because $50 sounds pretty good right about now.

Anyway, I went inside and hung out for a while. A man played Georgia on My Mind on the piano and I noticed that pretty much every female in the room looked like she could be in my age group. However, I’m terrible at guessing ages and I think one girl was actually 15 and some others were in 35-39. Eventually it was time to go outside and start. I wore a fairly ridiculous outfit with the hopes of staying warm (full length tights with pink knee high socks over them+regular socks, hat, neckwarmer, halloween gloves, short sleeve+long sleeve+vest), but that definitely was not happening while standing around at the start. My teeth were clacking and my middle was practically convulsing. The race itself went by pretty quickly (though not really in finish time, haha) and knowing the basic layout of the course helped. You start off on a downhill, dipping and coming back up a small hill, and then turning onto a main thoroughfare which alternates between being flat and a very slight incline. That’s the first mile and a half or so and it’s pretty boring. You run in the right lane with cars going by in the left lane and the lane wasn’t actually blocked off, but there were a ton of police and firemen holding traffic. You take a right into a more residential section, run around a little town square, go back the way you came, take a right, and then you are almost done and you can see the cars by the finish line.

I ran most of the race behind this tiny master’s woman wearing shorts; at the end of the race inside the theater, she kind of said to herself, “this old gray mare ain’t what she used to be.” It was kind of awesome. Anyway, I was behind her and then there was another girl in black between us that I didn’t want to pass too soon. My legs weren’t tired, but my arms were super cold and I felt like I was carrying concrete blocks around with me. They were just dead weight and not helping me move at all. She kept shaking out her arms, so I imagine she felt the same way. With about a third of a mile to go when I could see the lights at the finish line, I decided to go for it. Then 20 seconds later, I was like, crap, I am tired and now she’s going to pass me. I managed to pass a guy and then let my legs kind of flop down the hill to the finish. You know, when you are just going, slap slap slap and not doing a whole lot of actual pushing off.

I finished in 26:21, which was slower than I would have hoped, but 42 seconds faster than last year. And it was super duper cold. I was wearing a Buff (love this thing) around my neck and had it pulled over my mouth so I would get some warmer air. I pulled it down for a minute because it was getting damp and when I tried to pull it back up, all the moisture had frozen it solid. My splits were pretty even; 8:25, 8:32, 8:27, and then 7:05 pace for the last .14. I should also mention that the volunteers/police/firemen here were all smiles and very friendly, even though they were standing out in the dark and freezing cold. The course is easy to follow and overall very flat with the exception of the hill at the very beginning.

Results:
finish time 26:21
1/6 age group
4/26 female
24/80 overall

I went to the gym this afternoon and eeked out four miles. Something in my [very bland?] lunch was making my stomach feel like it was on fire and even the promise of MTV True Life: I’m a Fanboy could not make me sweat it out any longer. Mustard, why are you going to do me like that? Lazy. So, I finished with a pretty light week both in miles and exercise time. Next week, I need to get in a long run sometime. Making statements with loose goals like “a long run … sometime” is how I end up not doing things. How about at least ten miles next Friday?

1/3 Sunday, nada
1/4 Monday 6.53 miles, 60:00
1/5 Tuesday 8.0 miles, 72:14
1/6 Wednesday 2.3 miles, 20:00 plus 45:00 spin class
1/7 Thursday, nada
1/8 Friday, Elberton 5k, 3.14 miles, 26:21
1/9 Saturday 4.0 miles, 36:47

totals for the week:
23.97 miles
3:35:22 time running
4:20:22 total workout time (cardio, not including any weights)

charlotte thunder road marathon

Long time, no post. Not much has happened running-wise in the past few weeks. On Thanksgiving, I ran the Dallas YMCA Turkey Trot 8 mile. In typical family fashion, we arrived late (though everyone else was doing the 5k walk, so technically they were on time, while I was late. awesome.) and my first couple of miles were very slow (11-ish minute miles) while I slogged through walkers, dog leashes, etc. I picked it up a little the rest of the race to finish in 1:14:18, with about an extra quarter mile on my Garmin from the dodging.

On Friday, I took a final exam, took a nap, and took a ride up to Charlotte for Saturday’s Thunder Road Marathon. I signed up for Thunder Road a couple of days after the Marine Corps Marathon, a combination of that vulnerable “let’s do it again!” post marathon feeling and also being bummed about my finishing time and kind of wanting to give it another shot without going through another several months of long runs, etc. I didn’t run too much in the past month and my longest run was 13.1 at Pinehurst a couple of weeks ago. For the most part, I’ve stuck to an hour or so of running and have been doing spin classes. Sometimes you just need a break from the same stuff, although arguably the time for that break might not be right before a marathon.

I made a quick detour to the Whole Foods in Greenville for some snacks and made it up there by around 4pm. The hotel I stayed in was the Westin, which was really nice, but also kind of sucked. They didn’t have free internet, except in the lobby. Who wants to go down to a lobby to use the internet? It was $13 or $18 for a day of internet access in your room. Even the Days Inn can do better than that! My room wasn’t too expensive, but when you tack on $18/night parking, charging for wireless access, etc that’s kind of getting up there. The location was good, though, with the Charlotte Convention Center next door and the starting line right in front of the hotel. I walked to the convention center to pick up my race packet and cruised around there for a minute, but there wasn’t too much to see and I was back in my room by 5:30. Easy peasy.

Less easy peasy was the sleeping, which is still giving me trouble. I vowed to give up caffeine after Saturday morning, but I couldn’t find any decaf at the grocery store today so those bets are off (you know I looked really hard). I grazed on food all evening and drank water and climbed into bed around 9pm, but didn’t fall asleep until a little before midnight. There was some tossing and turning, but no worse than a regular night and a bonus nightmare about being late for the race in the pouring rain. I was stoked to wake up around 6am and just be glad that dream was over and it wasn’t raining. I continued cramming food in my maw since I usually end up hungry from not eating enough, so in went half a wheat bagel, most of a blueberry muffin, a banana, a cup of coffee, and more water. Got dressed (tank top, long sleeve, vest, 3/4 length tights, and gloves) and headed down to drop my things off in the car before going to the convention center.

The latest the hotel would allow checkout was 1pm, so I figured I’d drop my things in the car and if I had enough time, come back up and shower. I got in the elevator, remembered my car being parked by a column painted with B1, and “mashed the button.” Got out, and no car. Okay. Crap. Crap crap crap. I went back to the elevator, really confused because I was sure I was not on B2 or B3. Checked those levels, and nope. Then I elevated to sh*t, sh*t, sh*t. My car ended up being on B1m, some mysterious parking level like you might find in Sideways Stories From Wayside School. Happy dance.

The start line was right outside the hotel and convention center. I made it out there around 7:30 or so for a 7:50 start time and no one was inside the fenced off area yet. People were mostly either milling around outside or in the convention center. It wasn’t as cold as I expected (upper 20s, but comfortable for whatever reason) so I opted to hang around outside, figuring warming up inside wasn’t going to do me much good. When we started moving into the starting area, the pacers for 4 hours, 4:15, etc were very close to the front for some reason, with only about 20 feet between them. That was one of the few valid complaints I read on the Active.com reviews. It wasn’t leaving much room for people running faster than that. We started a few minutes late, but it seemed to go pretty smoothly; not super crowded for the first couple of miles, although sometimes the pace groups made things a little dense.

I’m not much of a mile by mile person, so I’ll spare you. The first half was much nicer and mostly run through residential areas. Kind of Anytown, USA and nothing that really stands out, but pleasant. There were pockets of people cheering, most notably the lone older man sitting silently on his bumper, semi-leering and holding a wooden paddle that said, “smile if you need a spanking.” Woah! Awesome. The half runners split off at mile 12, so the course thinned out considerably there and the miles ticked by. My best “bad encouraging comment” of the day came here when a volunteer, presumably thinking I was running the half, told me I was “almost there.” HAHA NO! I hit the halfway point at 1:57:xx. I think the course started heading back into the city and less residential areas around this point and I was passed on a hill by three guys wearing red union suits with the flaps open. Semi-demoralizing, but funny. Drum players under a bridge were awesome and insanely loud (mile 15?), ran through a wooden cutout of “the wall” around mile 18 (I think), some kids with signs for someone else named Beth that said “Beth is hot,” tons of super rowdy people drinking at a house on a corner around 23 or 24 and being crazy, terrible little hill at mile 24. I ran up one last sloping uphill to the finish, love some blonde lady who was standing in the middle of the street holding a sign that said “you did it” or something to that effect and cheering for everyone who passed her (I could never just be standing there and cheering like crazy for random people, so I love that other people actually do because it’s so gratifying at that point), high fived some sort of furry mascot thingy, and finished in 4:12:00 (chip time). Obviously, I was a lil’ slower in that second half. Or a lot slower. Either way, I was stoked to have improved my time by about 13 minutes since it was kind of a gamble after not being too serious about preparing for the past month. I tried really hard to stick to what I knew I should do; start slower in the beginning than felt normal, drink mostly water so I didn’t feel over-sugared, and take gels whether I wanted to or not (20 minutes before, mile 5, 10, 15, 20). I took Hammer Gels until mile 20 and then it was a vanilla orange Gu Roctane they gave out somewhere on the course. It was so disgusting and chunky from being cold, even though it was in my pocket for a couple of miles before I ate it.

Anyway, the weather was perfect, the course was pretty decent with rolling hills and incline that’ll add up but is not intimidating or scary hilly, people were friendly, and the volunteers and aid stations were very well organized. I’d run this one again, but I’m ready to not think about marathoning for a little while. My next will probably be ING Georgia in March.

pinehurst turkey trot half marathon results

My mom and I did the turkey trot in Pinehurst last year on impulse. I had been slated to run my first half marathon on Thanksgiving in Atlanta, but when I got up here the night before the race and saw an ad in the paper, it seemed like as good an idea as any to get my first half marathon over with the next day. It was freezing; I think the high for that day was 41 degrees. I don’t think I even really owned any “running clothes” at that point besides shorts and I ran in shorts, a t-shirt, and thermal long sleeve. I finished the race in 2:16:xx, cold and dead tired.

The race is small and sponsored by the local hospital. It begins at the hospital, leads out for a pretty flat first several miles into some very rolling residential areas around Pinehurst Lake for miles 5-9.x, and then back to the hospital on that flatter stretch for miles 10-13.1. The hills in the middle are punishing because they’re pretty constant around mile 7 and on with a mixture of long, mild rises and short, steep hills. My personal favorite is the run up a hill, make a turn, and run up another hill combo, which abound here. Here’s the little elevation profile from my Garmin. I’m not really sure how these things work since that dip at mile 2 is the same location as the deep dip after mile 10.

My goal this year was to beat last year’s time or risk severe self esteem issues. I didn’t figure a PR was in the picture since I had tough time last year and I knew it wasn’t entirely my lack of experience, so I tried for the elusive goal of “having fun.” That’s kind of a wash since usually I have fun when I do something reasonably well, otherwise I stew and get mad at myself. So, doing it right ended up being my goal and I feel pretty good about my race.

I woke up super early (5:30am) and couldn’t get back to sleep despite the fact that I was running for funskies and didn’t have anything to worry about. Eventually, I got out of bed and ate some breakfast around 7am; two pieces of raisin toast. New goal is making myself eat more food even though it’s unappetizing, because I’m inevitably heading out the door knowing that I’m still hungry. We left around 8am for a 9am start time for me and a 9:30am start time for my mom’s 10k. Temperatures were in the 40s with forecasts for 50s later on in the morning, so I wore shorts, a short sleeve, and a long sleeve. I had done packet pickup on Friday night and waited in line forever. It definitely seemed like a bigger event this year than it was last year (though it’s the 29th one, so it’s not like it’s new), but still a pretty small field for the half at around 300 runners.

During the first few miles, I did my best to run a speed that felt comfortable and easy to me and not worry about all the shuffling around as people get into their groove at the beginning. Knowing the course ended up being the best part about this race because I knew what I was going to have to save more energy for later (whether I had any, eh) and during the beginning I just kept thinking that the harder sections wouldn’t begin until mile 5 or so and not be over zealous or pumped that I was feeling good early on. When I started hitting the harder sections, I kept thinking about how I was miserable at this point or that point last year, and feeling really good about my progress since then. Each hill I ran up felt like a mini victory if I remembered walking it last year. I stuck with water from the water stations at mile 5 on, and ate an espresso Hammer Gel at the halfway point even though I didn’t want to. Again, trying to do the right thing even though it’s so unappealing, yet delicious. I spent the next half mile trying to make sure I didn’t have brown gel smudges on my face since it was all over my hand and I didn’t want to be looking like I just tore through the candy store on my way to the finish.

I wasn’t sure if I was just exceptionally wimpy last year because I didn’t run a lot of hills and my longest run had been 10 miles previously, but around mile 7.5 I definitely conceded that it was the course and not just my wimpy self speaking. Mile 7.5 until mile 10 were the hardest miles for me, but luckily that isn’t too long of a stretch and I knew it would be flat once we got back to mile 10 and cross the railroad tracks. I ran most of this behind a couple pushing a baby stroller and I just did not feel motivated to pass them with the constant up and down hills. They would’ve probably just passed me a minute later, so it didn’t seem worth the effort to go around them (yes, that felt like effort at that point) on an uphill and I didn’t want to be one of those people who sprints passed on a downhill only to slog along in front of you as soon as it’s uphill again. I was running a bit slower during this section since I was just matching their pace and didn’t break away from them until mile 10 (though they passed me towards the end and finished a little bit ahead of me – my mom actually knew the lady). There were not many people around so it was kind of nice to not be just running along by myself. Miles 9 and 10 were my slowest splits (9:23, 9:31). Last year, I got passed by an old lady around mile 7 or 8, so I figure getting passed by a guy pushing a stroller is a slight improvement.

The last few miles, I kept telling myself I’d walk through the next water stop. My favorite tricks involve lying to myself, such as giving myself a 10-15 foot area where it’s okay to walk, and then running through it and not letting myself walk until the next stop, repeat. This works as long as I’m not tired enough to actually stop in that area, which I wasn’t. I hadn’t walked any of the course, so that became motivating enough to finish without a walk break. It was also getting narrow to make it under two hours with those slower miles in the middle and I figured I’d be so mad at myself if I took a superfluous walk break that pushed me over two hours. We started passing 10k walkers around mile 11 (downhill! woop woop) and I looked for my mom, but didn’t see her there. Nothing much to note about the last couple of miles. They seemed less flat than they were when they were the first couple of miles, haha. I spotted my mom waiting for me just before the turn to the finish. I finished in 1:59:15, which was 54/144 women and 17 minutes faster than last year, and then my mom took photos of me bending over to take off my timing chip. ? My Garmin gave me 13.19 and a time of 1:59:26 (I stopped it while I was taking off my chip). There was no timing mat at the start, but I also only started about 20 feet back, so NBD.

Having fun, goal accomplished. I felt really good the entire race, even when it was hard and I was going slower than I wanted to be going. The mental parts of running are the hardest, so staying relatively in control of my pace and not having to walk at all on a hilly course felt like a huge accomplishment. Here’s a couple of the things I have learned in the past year. As you’ll see, I haven’t learned that much.

- Don’t worry about what other people are doing. It doesn’t matter who passes you or how minuscule or giant their butt may be as they pass you. They don’t have to carry your beat up carcass the rest of the race because you wanted to have a mini-race at mile 2, but you do. Conversely, don’t pass people if you have to speed up to do it. Unless it’s the end. Then run like hell. Or lurk behind them for a while, then run like hell.
- Look down when you run uphill. It makes it a lot easier and seems flatter.
- Eat! Drink! Even if you don’t want to do it then, you’re probably going to wish you did later and by then it’s too late. This goes for breakfast, too. I’m going to start getting up really early and eating before I feel nauseous. Then I’m going to brainstorm a hobby that doesn’t make me feel like I have freaking dysentery beforehand.
- Please, thank you, and a smile go a long way, as they do in most other endeavors. Don’t be a jerk. I saw some grown man yelling at a course volunteer, who looked all of about 12 years old, because there was a car on the road. Actually, there were a lot of cars on the road because it was a residential area (and the kid was doing his job, which was keeping cars from an adjoining road from entering the main road). Look out for number one, but be nice to everyone else too, please. Being polite makes us all winners. Being a total turd while running a half marathon doesn’t earn you any extra medals.

Here’s me being sweaty and almost done while someone else is walking around all cool with his medal, and then my mom and I afterward. It would be awesome if I looked mildly physically fit in any photo taken of me, but instead I look like I’m power walking or heaving most of the time. If you’re wondering why I don’t have a small yeti piggybacking me, it’s because I got a haircut a couple of days ago. My legs were super sore last night, but some Aleve fixed that and I am feeling good today. My mom finished her 10k about five minutes faster than last year, and beat some people to boot. Go mom!

2009 marine corps marathon

I’m not really one for suspense, so I’ll go ahead and spit out it. I’m kind of a little bummed about this race. I went in feeling like I could reasonably expect a 4:10-4:15 finish and possibly faster if I were feeling good, but I ended up with a 4:29:37, about four minutes slower than my first marathon time. I thought for sure I had to do better than last time, being that I actually did way more miles and long runs than for ING Georgia and the second half of the course was much flatter. Not so much, though. “Wha’ happon?”

My mom and I got up to DC mid-afternoon on Saturday in time for torrential downpours and mega-traffic in the area. It was stressing me out and I felt like we were never going to make it to the expo, especially when we followed my dad’s GPS instead of good old Google Maps directions and went the wrong way off the highway. We eventually got to the expo with plenty of time to spare (typical) and picked up my race number and totally sweet baby blue, cotton, mock-neck long sleeve race tshirt. That t-shirt is pretty much the best thing to ever happen to sales of race-branded apparel, let me tell you. We walked around the expo and bought a black Brooks MCM shirt for me and a white long sleeve for my mom, who earned it with some serious driving and public transit time over the weekend. We checked into our hotel in Arlington and then drove over to Whole Foods to get some dinner from the salad bar and ate in the hotel room while watching the Weather Channel (yep, still raining) and figuring out transportation for the next morning, pinning my gels to my shorts, number to my shirt, etc and getting all our things ready to throw in the car since we didn’t have a late checkout. We decided my mom would meet me around miles 10, 19, and 22 water stations.

We were in bed by 11pm, maybe asleep by 12am or so. I woke up a little before my alarm went off at 5am. It was a pretty relaxing morning and I felt comfortable, not nervous, and ready to go, but not hungry at all. I had to short on the eating because I knew if I kept going, I’d barf. We left around 6:30am and my mom dropped me off at the Crystal City Metro station to catch the shuttle to the starting line, where I noted the irony of standing in line for 30 minutes to take a shuttle about a mile before running 26.2. Oh, well. I shot the shit with a nice girl from the DC area running her first marathon and a man from the Seattle area on his 49th. I was running behind by the time we got to the start, so I worked against every grain in my body that wants to be on time and told myself it really didn’t matter whether I was on time or not since my race wasn’t starting until I crossed the starting line, which ended up being about 12 minutes after the gun went off.

The first third of the race was very crowded; think Peachtree Road Race if you’ve done that one. Lots of bob and weave, jostling, full contact running! These first eight miles were the hilliest of the course, but very manageable and I ran towards mile 10 feeling good and looking forward to seeing my mom and handing off my long sleeve. I couldn’t find her there, which sent me into a bad mood about the whole thing and I pulled out my dad’s cell that I was carrying (because it’s lighter than mine) and tried reaching her on her phone and my phone to see if I’d missed her or if she wasn’t there yet so she wouldn’t keep waiting for me. Of course, this is where I saw the first race photographers, while I’m walking and [attempting to be] talking on my cell phone. Whatever. I couldn’t reach my mom and didn’t get in touch with her until I was at the halfway point and she was still looking for me at mile 10. I don’t know why this bummed me out so much. Probably because I’m a grump, but after that I just felt kind of dejected and it was hard to keep up speed/motivation to get to mile 19, where she said she’d head to. At ING Georgia, Brian had been supposed to meet me at mile 21 and didn’t get there in time, so I just started stewing. I decided since then that if I’m going to attempt to see anyone along the course, either I need them to not tell me where (and they have an eagle eye for me) or it needs to be very late in the race so I’m not sad the rest of the time that they weren’t there.

I trudged along and my pace just stunk it up. I spotted my mom near mile 20, just before the bridge. The bridge was probably the longest/most boring part of the course. For as slow as I was running and as frustrated as I was, the miles and the time seemed to be moving by pretty quickly. My Garmin had me about .20 miles over the course mile markers, which increased to .40 over by the end of the race. This was my second bummer since my Garmin would beep that I was on mile 23 and then I’d have to run another third of a mile or so before actually reaching the mile marker. Not a huge deal, but not really helpful and I couldn’t understand why the gap was growing and growing towards the end, since I attributed the extra mileage to all the jostling at the beginning of the race. I was so frustrated. After a few days, I’m mostly over it and am not going to cry about it, but I’m not going to lie – I was pretty disappointed at the time when I realized I wasn’t even going to beat my last time, let alone finish faster.

Running out of Crystal City (an out-and-back portion), you headed back onto a highway, down an exit ramp, and past the starting line, then up a hill to the finish line and the Iwa Jima memorial.

Other stuff: I started the race with 5 Hammer gels and only ate 2, at miles 7 and 10-ish. Surely a bad move, but I couldn’t deal with eating the sugary gels, which I usually like. Obviously as everyone else says, the thing is very well organized and executed by the Marines. Tons of people were wearing shirts in remembrance of family members. I’m the kind of person who will bawl if you mention that your dog died ten years ago, so it took a lot of focus not to cry looking at all of them. Best moment was probably getting a high five from a young blonde [female] Marine at the starting line.

I saw the most amazing person in the race using crutches (I know there is another word, but am blanking on it; a more permanent version that uses your forearm more and not so much your armpit) and he was followed by someone pushing a wheelchair if he needed it (he did not when I saw him). I can only assume that he was a veteran and he had very scarred legs and what looked like parts of his calves gone. It is so incredible what people can persevere through and the cards that people get dealt and don’t give up. Thinking about your odds of something happening to you from conception forward, if you are born whole and healthy and remain that way, you’re unbelievably lucky. I don’t think I feel like running a race in and of itself is a great personal accomplishment, but it is a testament to the fact that you are fortunate enough to be more able-bodied and blessed than so many people who face bigger challenges every day. I don’t feel a sense of pride at finishing so much as hugely fortunate to be healthy and strong enough to run, happy and motivated enough to set goals for myself, to live somewhere that people enlist to risk their life for everyone else and then congratulate them on a day that’s probably a tenth as difficult as their easy days, financially able to spend hours running and training and traveling hours away just to run some more, and to have people who love me enough to come along and encourage me and cheer for me and let me sleep in the car on the way home and then have the audacity to mention that my feet hurt.

Results:
Chip time: 4:29:37
Distance: 26.2/Garmin 26.6
9,430/21,176 finishers
2,791/8,335 females
669/1813 age group 25-29

big weekend

Not much to report from me. I’ve taken to wearing shoes all of the time, from the minute I get out of bed until I get back into bed, and it seems like it’s helping to get rid of my foot pain. The second my foot goes into a pair of Vans to check the mail, though, it’s back. I ran about 33-34 miles last week, averaging slightly shorter runs than usual.

On Saturday, I ran the Marigold 10K. 10K is a weird distance; not a long run, sure, but not short enough to feel very, you know, short. It definitely did not feel short on Saturday. In the interest of full disclosure, I stayed up until about 12:30am the night before and drank two glasses of wine (with ice – hydration!). When I woke up ten minutes before the alarm went off, I actually felt pretty good and made it over to Winterville to register with plenty of time to spare. It was cool, a little breezy, nice. And then as the clock clicked from 7:59am to 8:00am, it was humid, muggy, and hot as heck. That’s a small exaggeration, but I definitely got there early enough to go from reasonable morning weather to typical Georgia weather. I ended up with a time of 56:24, almost three and a half minutes slower than my last 10K which was run on a much hillier course. A couple of things could be to blame. Let’s start with the reasonable:

- Staying up late.
- Drinking alcohol.
- Not running as much as I was a month or two ago.

And move on to the plausible:

- Course was flat. Yes, that is super, but usually when I run outside, I run on some hills. I’m not terribly slow running up hills unless they’re particularly long or daunting (say I from the comfort of my couch and air conditioned house), so I don’t think I lose a lot of speed there. But I do like to charge downhills and it never really bothers my legs, so maybe I am used to picking up some speed on the downhills to make up for an overall slower pace on flats and uphills. I’m using the terms “slow,” “speed,” and “charge” in a relative manner, by the way.
- Water. I drink a freaking ton of water on outdoor runs and should probably have carried some with me since I’m used to drinking regularly. Drinking out of the paper cup doesn’t do it for me and I usually just chuck most of it for fear of chugging and cramping. I think drinking water also gives me another distraction to think about. And distraction is important to me.

There’s probably a “not freaking likely” list of factors to blame, but a couple of days out of the race and I can’t remember them. I went home, worked, tried to nap, and then headed to Atlanta to play some derb in a bout benefiting the Shriners. It was fun and my team won. Technically, I should reverse that order and say that my team won, so it was fun. Not going to lie, I was going to be pretty bummed about losing after feeling like I bombed once already that morning. I was game MVP for my team, as chosen by the opposing team, and that’s always a really nice compliment.

Yesterday, we “kayaked” the Broad River all day. Kayaking is in quotes because it’s more like floating and drinking beer, but the water level was low (26″) so we had to expend a little more effort than usual to avoid getting stuck on rocks, sand, etc. I wore sunscreen and reapplied, but still ended up with a gnarly sunburn on my back, legs, and feet. Brian got it really badly, too, and he used two kinds of sunscreen. Neither too effective, apparently. We spent the rest of the evening laying on the couch trying to recover from that. I haven’t been brave enough yet to try to get into some running clothes without causing major physical harm to myself, but I should probably get on that. Next up, Peachtree Road Race this Saturday. I’m not a big fan of crowds, so this one will be a little nutty.

2009 ING Georgia Marathon

I finished in 4:25. My hopeful, non-stated goal was to finish under 4:30; that isn’t fast, but I had no idea what to expect and wanted to be happy just finishing no matter what. I am happy with the time and ready to improve it! The run went a lot better than I had expected. Last November when I did the Atlanta Half Marathon, which shared the second half of the course (or something like that) with the marathon route, I remember thinking that if I were seeing those mile markers, I would be so depressed knowing I had so much further to go (“I’m only on 15 out of 26?”). I was surprised to never really think about that during the race and stay focused on being satisfied with how far I had made it.

It started out cold and stayed cold the whole race. I think it lingered in the mid 40s, low 50s. I expected it to be warmer and had an oddly sized clearance shirt (see pic above) ready to ditch when I heated up, which never happened. The term “blustery” comes to mind. I didn’t take it off until about half a mile before the finish line when I asked one of the race volunteers to hold my headphones so I could pull it off and avoid it in the finish line photo. I know, valuble seconds so wasted. Haha.

The marathon route split from the half marathon at mile 7. After that point, it was much less energetic and fewer people along the course (and less populated areas, I guess). This was nice because dodging people walking everywhere in the first few miles was annoying as heck. Etiquette was not really great at the beginning of the race; if you are walking on the first mile, downhill, you probably should have started further back (possibly in your assigned corral, hmm?) so everyone else doesn’t have to dodge you and your quadruplet friends who are walking next to you on the left, right, and center. Just saying.

I stayed around the 4:15 pace group until about mile 18 or 19, at which point climbing those long hills was catching up to me. I felt like I had a lot of energy, or at least adequate energy, until about mile 22 and 10th Street. My legs started giving me the uh-uh at that point. Maybe the real problem was that I stopped and stretched for a minute; once I stop, I am real lazy bones about getting it going again. Brian was supposed to meet me at mile 21 on Ponce and I had been looking forward to that, but he wasn’t able to get there so it was kind of disappointing to have to trot through looking at all the people thinking I was missing him. He had my last gel (I took one pre-race, mile 6, 11, 16), so I missed that and I’m not sure if that would have helped or not. I’m pretty sure my legs were going to be pretty toasted regardless. The last few miles were hard knowing that I had such a short distance to go and my legs not wanting to go up 10th, Tech, etc, so I started doing some run/walk. I was definitely ahead of the time I thought I would be at, so that was nice and encouraging (and part of why B wasn’t at 21, because I was ahead of my guesstimate), but it also started the whole, how well could I finish if I could just push myself a little bit more now? The answer was, you get what you get!

The last mile was really, really long. Boring and long. It came with its own source of irritation as the ING had this thing where kids did a running program and then ran their last mile on the last mile of the course. This apparently was happening or had happened around the time I was coming in, because there were mad kids and parents just walking along the course, four or five wide and in my way. I was like, dang, y’all, I just ran 26 miles, so if you could give me the inside line on that corner to the downhill finish, I would appreciate it! I know you are busy walking, texting on your cell phone and all, but it would be nice. It made it feel like the race was just suddenly over before reaching the finish line and totally sucked. FYI, ING.

I really had the best time, despite my inclination to talk about the stuff that annoys me. The course was pretty hard for me (so many hills later in the game) and like I said, I really did not prepare as much as I could have long-run wise. There was usually enough to look at to be distracting and kill some time, except around miles 16-17ish which were in some crazy boring area. I felt like I fell into some dead zone there for a while because I have no idea where that was or how long I was there. I remember getting there because the mile marker had fallen down and some guy pointed it out. And then I just remember really big houses and tall trees and a steady incline (on the elevation chart here). I feel like now I can be motivated to do longer runs (when I have time, which is not right now) and pick up the pace a little and try for a faster time. Part of being worried about doing this race was knowing that I didn’t have enough time between work and school to really put in the hours-long runs I should have and I really didn’t because I have to prioritize school and work, obviously. But I have my sights set on a next race, probably not until the fall. In the meantime, I am planning to do the Lake Hartwell Dam Run 10k (I am a sucker for a funny name) on May 2nd and then the Peachtree Road Race on July 4. While I was looking up those links, I just saw the Terrapin Beer 5k plus one more and now I want to do that! It’s at 4pm and ends at the brewery, which sounds dangerous or fun. I’m not sure which.

Here’s a cool link to a (slightly blurry) video of the course from last year. It shows some of the course highlights, like the king center, driving miss daisy house (located in boringtown above), mlk’s birthplace, agnes scott college, carter center, ga tech – a lowlight, depending who you are etc. In closing, I did it! Yeah!