Oops. Should have gotten this out sooner, but blogger is just taking a back seat to everything right now and things have been crazy.
Timeline
Saturday: The hubs studied all day for his exam so I was on kid patrol. We went to Home Depot for their Kid's Workshop (it's free BTW) and the little lady made a helicopter.
Then it was off to the "Expo" to get my race number. Not much to do there so I just grabbed my number, shirt, and swag and left. The rest of the day was typical. Kids went to bed, the hubs and I watched some football and then he left to spend the night out to get a good night's sleep. I was feeling very nervous. I felt like I hadn't trained enough, and was concerned about hitting a wall (I know it's only 13.1 miles), but I was nervous. With my lack of sleep, I felt weak. I set my alarm for 4:50am. The little guy woke up at 1:00am. That was pretty good for him. I fed him, then put him back to bed. At 4:20am, my daughter woke up with a bad dream. She was crying. I went in there to help her. Calmed her down and at 4:30am, the little guy woke up. I fed him (this was going to hurt my pumping that I was supposed to do at 4:50am) and tried to put him back down. Didn't work. For the next hour, I was back in there every 5 minutes. He would not go down. At 5:30am my sister arrived to watch the kids and I was off. I told her good luck (he didn't go down until 6:15am btw).
I drove over to the race, not far from my house. Got there in plenty of time. Had my pre-race snack of banana and almond butter. Went to the potty (no line) and then went back to the car because I was freezing. I had debated about what to wear. I decided on running capris, dryfit shirt, and a long sleeve dryfit shirt. I knew I would be fine for the race, but I was cold now. I sat in my car for 20 minutes and then I had to pee again. Well now the line was super long, so I scratched that idea. I did a warm-up lap and ate my Clif Shot Blok and got in line. It was a smallerish race. 2,500 runners or so.
Race started at 7am. I was off. I felt ok. Looked at my watch (sometime I typically don't do) to see how my pace was. About 8:30 at the beginning. That was good. I didn't want to go out too fast. Now I am not sure if it's age, lack of sleep, or lack of training, but I used to be a 1 mile warm-up girl. After one mile, I was ready to go. Not anymore! Now, it's at least 2 miles. Those 1st 2 miles were hard. I felt awful. I thought, there is no way I am going to finish this, let alone averaging 8:17 minute miles. After mile 2, I said (to myself), ok, all miles under 9:00 minutes would be great for me. Mile 3 - 9:00. Crap! Ok, from now on. After that, I started to get into a groove and my legs started to really loosen up and feel better. I was only getting water at the hydration stations, because you never know what the gatorade is going to taste like. Sometimes it's watered down and that's great, but sometimes, it's really strong and that is not good for my tummy while running. At mile 4, I took off my long sleeve and tied it around my waist. Around mile 5, I had another Shot Blok and then another around mile 9. Basically, when I noticed my energy getting low, I had one. I was familiar with the route from doing this race 2 years ago (last year I was pg so I couldn't run it). Miles 10 and 11 were hilly and that sucked because both splits were over 9:00 minutes, but other than that, I stuck to my under 9 minutes and kept it consistent.
At the end, I started picking people off. Thank you to the course for giving me 2 small downhills at the very end. So nice! I saw a guy right in front of me at the end, so I just took off. We ended up tying according to official race results, but in my eyes, I beat him.
Would have loved to have finished under 1:55:00, but oh well. Maybe next time. Average pace was just under 8:46. Not bad considering I have a 6 month old at home who doesn't let his mommy sleep. :) Hey, I am trying not to beat myself up over my crappy time.
After finishing, I grabbed my food and water and started to walk around. There was a place to get a massage but I was holding all my food, so I decided to just go home. No fan support for me. Lucky for me, my daughter greeted me at the door and loved my new bling (race medal).
We spent the rest of the day going to the park (pretty day) and watching football. The hubs called at 2:20pm saying he was just now breaking for lunch because his computer crashed on question #9. Took them over 2 hours to fix. He also said the test was hard. His goal was to start back by 3:00pm so he would call me around 6pm when he finished. 5:30pm hit and after that, I just kept looking at the clock. At 6:02pm, he called. HE PASSED!!!!! I was so relieved and excited for him. So while I didn't PR my race by means, I got the chance to run and hubs is a genius. Good day!
Race Results
Chip Time: 1:55:11
Overall: 685
Sex Place: 209
Division Place: 44
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