On Saturday I ran a 1:55:07 half marathon, which is a 4
minute PR!!!!
But let’s back up. Last time I posted I had a possible
stress fracture. I meant to post an update soon after that, that the imaging
didn’t show evidence of a stress fracture (yet). So, with the doc’s approval, I
decided to try for the race since I was already through the bulk of my
training. However, I focused primarily on my 2 remaining long runs and cut out
most of the shorter runs and cross trained instead. In that same time span, our
family was hit with several nasty colds followed by spring allergies. And it
was basically cold and rainy every day.
All of this to say is that I had low expectations going into
this race. I threw out my hopes of lowering the PR I set last year and just
wanted to finish. This year they moved the full to be on the same day as the
half, where is previous years it was the after. I left my house the same time
as last year, but this year I sat in traffic FOREVER waiting to park. I was
feeling frustrated and rushed by the time I finally parked. Luckily bib pick-up
was quick, but I still felt rushed trying to get to the bathroom and ready to
run. I managed to get myself together and ready by 8 am………. And then I waited
and waited. The race started more than 20 minutes late. I always expect a few
minutes delay, but almost half an hour is not okay. I had taken my caffeine
(still going with the caffeine pills instead of coffee to lessen the bathroom
trips) and fuel expecting an 8am start.
Finally though we were off and thankfully, I was in the
first coral. The amount of runners around me felt just right. After the first ¼
mile or so I had plenty of company, but it never felt too crowded. My plan was
to just run by effort. I set my watch for 6 minute run, 30 second walk
intervals. I missed the first walk break, but took all of them after that. I
realized about 2 minutes in that I had forgotten to use the inhaler I had spent
a lot of time trying to get in the week leading up to the race (my lungs had never
fully recovered from a nasty chest cold I had in April). Oh well, too late now.
Luckily my lungs felt okay as I settled into a comfortably hard pace, but my
legs just had no pop. They never hurt, they just felt flat from the very beginning.
What did hurt however, was my right foot. This was entirely my fault because I
was wearing new shoes. The Wednesday before the race I did an easy 6 miler and
my feet hurt so much at the end. As I took off my shoes, I looked at the soles
and realized they were so worn down. I hadn’t been paying attention and totally
forgot to switch my shoes this spring. I was running in shoes that were almost
6 months old. I chose new shoes over the completely worn out ones, but ended up
feeling a hot spot under the ball of my right big toe less than a mile into the
race. I’d just finished Meb’s new book so I tried to think about the time he
raced with a Breathe Right strip in his shoe.
I had also worried about the weather. I did all my training
in weather under 40 and race day was 60 and sunny. But between the shade on the
course and the sea breeze it wasn’t too bad. It was a strange race, nothing
felt terrible, but it also didn’t feel good. I just kept plugging along,
occasionally glancing at my mile splits, but not looking at my overall time
until mile 10. At that time I realized that, as long as I didn’t implode, I’d
set a significant PR. Last year I felt so good in the last 2 miles of this race
and really pushed hard. This year I just hung on. I did take a couple extra short
walk breaks because all the hills are in the last couple minutes. I crossed the
line in 1:55:07, which is way faster than I ever expected.
Post race I immediately took off my shoes, enjoyed the free
gelato, and then headed home to an overtired and over-hungry toddler who was in
full meltdown mode. #Momlife.
This race was such a reminded to never count yourself out. A
hard training cycle can make you tougher and stronger.
