Didn't get the goal, but did get a PR - Indy Mini-Marathon Race Report

First, a bit of background. This race was supposed to be with my buddy L. Due to injury and a couple other hiccups, she wasn't able to attend. I understood, but I was sad - and I totally could have used her peppiness to get me through the last three miles. I ran the race solo - and while I got a PR, I am kind of upset with my mental performance through the last part of the race.

I took Friday off work and drove out to Indy. I love IRL racing, so I hit up the Speedway's race museum before checking into the hotel. Fantastic.

After that, dropped the car at valet and wandered out to the expo for packet pickup. WOW. I have never done a race this huge, and I have definitely never been to an expo this big. While it was cool to see so much running stuff in one place, it was a bit too jam packed for my tastes. I wandered around for about a half hour. I got three bondi bands and a race t-shirt.

SO - my hotel was literally on the same streets as the starting corrals. Which was amazing. I opened the windows that morning to look out and see the street blocked off and thousands of

people flooding into the streets. Very cool. I woke up shortly after 6 for a 7:30am start - when I only had to walk one block to my corral, why get up earlier?? I laid my outfit out the night before - I decided to go for all black. Slimming, right? PunkRockTriGuy will appreciate my apparel, I'm sure. (BTW, folks loved the shirt!! You can get your own HERE)

Shortly before 7, I wandered down to find my corral. For such a huge event, there seemed to be ZERO confusion. Each corral was obviously marked, volunteers where everywhere and super helpful. People were just super friendly and ready to go. I am amazed at how smooth the whole thing seemed to be going.

I got to corral O and wandered on in. Because it had taken me approximately 3 minutes to get there, I was one of the first people in my corral. I wandered up to the front of the corral and settled in. Within 15 minutes the corral was full - 20 minutes later and the dividers were down and we were all scrunching up. At 7:33am, the starting gun went off. It only took 14 minutes to get to the start. Awesome.

Off we go - and in comes the side cramp. Within the first half mile, the damn side cramp showed up. You have to be kidding me. I spent the first three miles just trying to knock that out. Somehow I managed to get ride of it, and I was keeping a pace of less than 10 minutes a mile. The weather was pretty great for a run - the humidity made the air a bit heavy, but there were gray skies so the sun didn't blare down. That was a plus - especially as we got to the speedway. This was a huge deal for me - a large part of why I signed up for the race in the first place. I loved the speedway part of the run - over 2 miles around one oval. Amazing.

I was so excited to cross the brickyard - I planned to stop and kiss the bricks. So, it was a bit surprising when we got to the point where they started to guide us off the track....I had run over the brickyard and had completely missed it. I was so "in the zone" or so "out of it" that I completely and totally missed it. Dammit.

By Mile 10, I was hurting. I kept saying "It's only a 5K" but it wasn't helping. By Mile 11, I was trying to give myself every pep talk I could. Mile 12 started my demise. I was walking longer through water stations. The thought of eating one of my last 2 chomp blocks nearly made me want to puke. I was barely holding it together. I would run for 5 minutes, walk for a minute. When I hit the last mile, I looked at my Garmin and knew that a 2:15 was out of the question. I was feeling defeated.

I even walked some when I only had a half mile to go. Then a lady in her 50s/60s wanders up to me and says "Hey Punk Rock Girl! I've been following you the whole way - you have to keep going!!!" Thank goodness for that woman. I was feeling so down and out at that moment in time. So I picked up my feet and ran that last quarter mile in, feeling like crap. I finished in 2:18:35. D and I finished the Lawrence Half in about 2:28. That's a PR of 10+ minutes. Which I AM thrilled about, I really just wanted a sub 2:15. Guess that means I just have to keep running these damn thing until I get it, right?

Overall though, fantastic race - I will totally do this one again. Loved every single thing about it!! And thanks so much to all the folks who texted, posted on facebook or just sent good vibes. It helped so much! Thank you thank you!!!!

This now means that "running season" is officially over for me. It's all about tri from here til September!!! WOO HOO!!!!!!!

The first timer's report

I was going to write a long post about the race, but first I thought I would share the perspective of my friend D who I ran the race with on Sunday. It was D's first ever half, and I am SO glad I was able to travel out to Kansas and run with her. She did such an awesome job of writing a race report herself, I figured I would share her account. (You can also read it first hand HERE.) My editorial is at the end.........

Well, my first half marathon is done! I have to say that physically it met my expectations in that I managed to accurately predict the general time it would start sucking and becoming more painful and less fun. I don’t think I was quite prepared for the mental aspect of it, however. Preparing yourself for the physical pain/discomfort doesn’t necessarily prepare you for the brain melt that comes along for the ride. Things got pretty dicey around Mile 11, and I know I wouldn’t have survived had M not been there. Honest to God. But more about that below…

Our day began at 5:30am after a good night’s sleep and a hearty spaghetti dinner at home the night before. I showered, because I'm one of those weird people that HAVE to shower every morning or else I don't feel normal. M and I had a bit of breakfast and coffee and started getting dressed for the race. M had secured matching shirts for us to wear and they were awesome. Perfect color, fit, feel, size, everything! We double-checked our packs, grabbed our chilled water bottles and head out the door about 6:40 or so. Luckily, the event site is a mere 5 minute drive from my house--yay for in-town races--and we sat in traffic for only 5 minutes before we got in to park. It was a fairly chilly morning (upper 40s at that point) so we walked around a bit trying to stay warm, hit the potty and chatted with a couple of my other running buddies a bit until it got close to gun time. All morning we debated whether or not to take our jackets on the run. We knew we’d need to lose them eventually, but it was so chilly at the start we weren’t sure how quickly we’d get to the ditch point. Luckily, as the sun started peeking out over the trees, it started warming up pretty quickly and we knew we’d be fine without them. We ditched our jackets a few minutes before the start and headed toward the pack. There were supposedly about 1,100 people running--that's all three races combined (5k, 10k, half), with somewhere around 700 running the half. We situated ourselves a little behind the 2:30 pacer, since that was our unofficial goal time. They started the race right on time, I think, and that was it! We were on our way!!

The beginning of the race was full of the usual optimism, joviality, and silliness that you feel when your race adrenaline is pumping, nothing hurts and you have all the confidence in the world. We spent the first 3 miles entertaining ourselves with "Half Marathon Bingo," and listing all the different categories we’d put on our bingo cards (getting smoked by a pregnant lady, getting smoked by a little kid, getting smoked by an old dude, guy in super short shorts with a boner, over-zealous runner throwing water on himself at an aid station, barefoot runner, etc.). We kept a pretty steady pace for those first 3 miles or so, according to M’s Garmin, and kept the 2:30 pacer close. About mile 3 or so, I was feeling a little rubbing on my arches so I had to pull over to adjust my sock a bit. Hit the road again and felt alright (or at least managed to ignore any foot pain for the next 3-4 miles.

We finally hit the halfway point, which was simultaneously encouraging and DIScouraging, if that's even possible. On one hand, I was all "YAY! We're halfway done!" and the other hand I was "WTF? We're only halfway done???" The 2:30 pace group was way ahead of us at this point, so that was discouraging and my feet hurt royally so I was getting pretty bummed. But M was very encouraging and kept me going when I felt like I couldn't continue. I was getting pretty quiet and surly at this point—our bingo game had lost its appeal and I found it hard to think about anything other than simply putting one foot in front of the other—so there wasn't a lot of talking. We popped some energy chews around mile 8 and that helped a bit. When we FINALLY reached the 10 mile sign, I realized I was officially running longer than I ever had before! Hurrah! I tried not to focus on the fact that I STILL had to run a 5k before I was finished and instead take it one step at a time.

At this point my legs and feet were dying and resisting every step and I was mentally beaten to a pulp. It didn’t help that the last 3 miles of the course was a portion we'd already done (with a few decent inclines thrown in, of course) which made it even MORE tedious. Oh and the 2:30 pacers were LONG gone, so I knew we probably weren't going to come close to our goal time, and M had stopped giving me Garmin updates, so I thought that definitely was the case, which made me even MORE bummed. Anyway, my legs were tired so we did take a couple of walk breaks those last 3 miles. Just about the time I thought I couldn’t possibly run any more, we hit the last mile marker and I could hear the finish line, so that kept me going. There were a few times before that I was pretty close to bursting into tears because I just wanted it OVER WITH—it was definitely mind over matter at that point. We turned into the stadium and had only 3/4 of the track left to run before the finish line. I managed to get a burst of speed (adrenaline for the win!) and we finished strong, hand in hand, as they read our names over the loud speaker! YAY!!!! It's FINALLY OVER, and what a glorious feeling. My first half marathon complete!

M stopped her Garmin at 13.1 miles, which was before the official finish line (we probably cut some distance off the course by switching running the inside of the road vs the outside and running the tangents), and it gave us a 2:28 time, which shocked me. The official finish time was 2:31:58 (okay, essentially 2:32), so quite a difference. But I'm going with the Garmin and taking the 2:28 time, which means we hit our goal! (Or close enough, right?)

My other running buddies were waiting at the finish line for us so we chatted with them a bit, got our medals (hooray for race bling!), grabbed some snacks (cold milk FTW!), and I finally took off my shoes because my feet were killing me. Yeah, turns out I had 2.5 inch blisters on the arches of both feet, which would explain why those last 3 miles sucked so much. We hung out just a bit longer, got our official time print outs and headed (hobbled) home.

Overall, and not having any other half marathon experience to compare it to, I’d say the day was a success. Yes, it was not without pain and discomfort (serious discomfort), but there was not one single moment when I regretted running that race. Even that brutal last 5k, when the pain was the greatest and my mental fortitude was its lowest, I STILL knew I’d do it again someday. Over the roar of the pain receptors firing away and warning beeps sounding their alarms in my brain, I could still hear that little voice saying “Oh, come on. You know you’re going to do this again in a few months, right?” And I know for a fact I couldn’t have pushed through without M by my side. She was the perfect running partner—encouraging at the right times, tough at the right times, quiet at the right times. Without her there I would’ve walked longer and more often and I don’t know that I would’ve had the guts to pull myself through those last few miles. Even though she didn’t necessarily say anything that spurred me along, just having her here made me want to push MYSELF. I can’t thank her enough for being willing to fly down here and run with me!

So yeah, I might already be thinking about when my next half will be. I’d like to see if I can get to the point where I don’t hate those last three miles. I think I would’ve done okay THIS race had it not been for those blisters, so you’d better believe my next race investment will be better socks.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a 13.1 sticker I need to affix to my car.

D did an awesome job with the recap. Some extra thoughts from me:

• I was so excited to be there for one of my best friend's first half marathon's. I am so proud of her - she did amazingly better than me in my first half. My attitude was significantly more horrible around miles 8-13, and I know I had to walk a whole hell of a lot more. Only great things to come from this runner, I know!
• Lawrence, Kansas rocks. If I ever decide to do a Half-Ironman (hint, hint), this is where I will do it.
• This race was really well put together. check in was a breeze the day before, and there was a lot of communication prior to the race. No questions about what happened when or where. We started right on time, and it was fantastic.
• The cons of the race were some confusion around which side of the street to run on at different parts of the race - there were weird switching patterns going on a few times. Also, we had to repeat a 3 mile segment of the course - we ran it at the beginning and again at the end. That made it mentally tough to fight through the hills you knew were coming. (It also added on some distance for us, as my Garmin hit 13.1 well before the actual finish.)
• I have never felt this good at this distance. We paced the race really nicely, and not going out of the gate too fast really helped (surprise surprise). I feel pretty confident about Indy now.
• Races get me pumped up. Sometimes training is a lonely endeavor. It really lit my fire again to get out there and run.
• Running with good friends is unparalleled.
• I love my girlfriends more than words can say.
  
  Now, back to real life. Tonight - swim class!!!!!