Race report

Another one down, and my fastest yet!  1:56:57 for 8:55/mile.

I don't really feel like writing up a report mile-by-mile, mostly because I'm tired and I want to go roll my IT bands and then lie down for awhile.  But I'll write a bit.

First of all, the weather was crappy--cold and raining.  I think it was around 40 when we started out, and I was wearing 2 wicking shirts and a windbreaker.  I was cold when I got up this morning and I never warmed up all day--I did briefly take off my windbreaker around mile 7 or so, but I put it back on after another mile or two.  My hands were so cold that it was really hard to get gels out--I couldn't close my hands around the packet.  The rain let up after 45 minutes or so, but then the wind started and it was worse!

I felt pretty good for the first few miles--both Megan and I had agreed that morning that we really didn't care about time; she'd had a really awful asthma attack on Thursday and I was still struggling with residual bronchial weakness from bronchitis last week.  Anyway, we lined up with the 10/mile group so that we wouldn't push too hard at the start.

We ran the first mile in around 8:47 or so and thought we maybe should slow down, but we were still feeling good so we figured we'd just stay in the zone.  The hill around 2.5 was harder than it usually is, and I think it was because my legs were so cold.  I was really excited at 3.5 to see Neil & the kids, but they didn't get there until after I'd gone by--such a bummer!  I was really sad about that for the next few miles as we ran downhill and over the bridge.  We hit another hill around 5.5 that was harder than I'd anticipated--my legs were so cold that my quads really had a hard time with the incline.  The mile-long hill around mile 8 was pure murder and I felt SO lousy!  I dropped back behind Megan and it took me probably the entire mile to catch up--I was really struggling to get my legs going, I was freezing cold, and I was starting to feel shaky and have goosebumps all over my whole body (usually a good indicator that I'm about to black out).  Argh.  I kept taking tons of gels and drinking water, and just sort of pushed through it.  I'm not going to lie, it was miserable and I REALLY wanted to stop.  I was just not having fun!  I felt this way until it flattened out and then I mostly just was miserable but sort of plodding along in my zone.  I started feeling better when we ran through campus and the wind was blocked by all the buildings--that made a huge difference!  Neil and the boys were at mile 10.5 (Luke totally had no idea what was going on and I don't think he recognized me when I high-fived him), and that gave me a little boost of happiness to go up the next lousy hill. Which was again really awful!  I honestly felt like I might be going faster if I was walking.  Then up another hill to mile 12, and I just stared at my feet and sang Cold Play's Viva La Vida in my head and ate another gel.  I caught up with Megan again and we talked briefly before I dropped back again (I was running about 15 feet behind her for the last 6 miles of the race!) and just powered through the last mile.  I tried to pick up the pace a bit, but mostly my legs were so cold that I felt like I couldn't do much more, and I was still struggling with pain in my ribcage from the bronchitis.

So it's interesting because the whole time I felt like I was going SO slow and it was miserable and cold and awful, and truthfully I really didn't enjoy it, but it was my fastest run yet!  And afterwards I felt fabulous and energetic and so proud of myself.  GO figure, right?  And since I was wearing my Garmin, i knew I was going faster, but I felt slow.