I did another 13.1 miles, but this time I felt like it was all UPHILL. So yesterday was the ING in Atlanta. I was so excited to be racing again. I hadn't raced since Nov. (Thanksgiving Day, another half). I feel like it's hard to get a lot of races in when you have a small child. If I leave early on a Saturday morning, that means Adam is in charge and sometimes he has his own Saturday morning plans (tennis matches). So Saturday night, I didn't sleep well. Adam played poker and came home late and then Hope woke up so I didn't get much sleep, but I was still ready to go. I made it down to Centennial Park by 6:15am (race to start at 7:00am). I took Marta and eat my usual pre-half marathon breakfast (one piece of whole wheat toast smeared with lowfat no salt added cottage cheese and topped with some blueberries) and some water. When I got the race, I went to gear check to drop off my bag and then I went to find the corals. All of the lines for the porta-potties were too long so no extra bathroom stops for me (I could have gone too so that was a little disappointing). I was happy to see that I was in Coral C (A and B were for seeded racers and I didn't put in a time for this race). I felt pretty good about that. I knew I wasn't going to finish in 1:45 like I had originially thought when I registered for the race, but I was going to soak it all up. I didn't know when my next half would be. The weather was overcast and 51 degrees. They were calling for rain, so I wasn't sure if I would get the entire race in before it rained. The gun went off and within 25 seconds I had already crossed over the start line. My first 2 miles were pretty fast (probably too fast for me) but they were 7:43 and 7:50. Miles 3-5 were all hills and I felt like they were all up hill. It wasn't until mile 6 before I thought we had leveled off. About 3.5 miles into the race, it started to rain. It wasn't very hard, mostly a heavy spit. I did feel like it slowed me down a little during the downhills (the few that there were). With the rain, the air turned crisp, which hurt my lungs a little bit. Around 8.5 miles, between Virginia Highlands and Piedmont Park, I saw Adam and Hope cheering me on. Hope was all bundled up in her new raincoat and blanket and Adam was taking pictures and video on the Flip camera.
Finally, around mile 12 I went up my last big hill and finished back in downtown Atlanta. My time was 1:52. . ., which of course, I was disappointed in (my PR is 1:48), but I knew I hadn't trained for this one like I had previous halfs, so I was ready for it. But still disappointing. We are selling our house, trying to buy a new house, and spending a lot of weekend time looking at houses instead of running. So of course, I am not overly happy with my time, but I ran this race 3 years ago, and I ran it in 1:57 so I was 5 minutes faster than I was 3 years ago (hadn't done much training then either because that was when my mom was sick). And the course for the ING was much more difficult than the course in Oct. when I got my PR, and there was better weather.
So that is my recap. I will post pictures when I get them on the computer.
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