4/2--Race report

Half-marathon this morning (well, half of a marathon relay...I actually ran a little further than the half mark but I stopped my watch at 13.1). 2:05:30, 15 weeks pregnant with baby #6, 4.5 months after tibial stress fracture. Neil ran the other half, bless his heart. That man sure does love me!

Goals for this race:

A: beat my last half time while pregnant with Nathan (2:08:19; I knew I didn't have a shot at the 1:58:54 I ran while pregnant with Luke. Thanks a lot, broken leg--but hey, I've only been running solidly for 8 weeks after all the time I had to take off for the fracture). I've now run 6 half-marathons, 3 of them while pregnant.

B: finish under 2:10

C: just finish at all.

I am happy to say that I smashed all 3 goals. :-) Citius, Altius, Fortius!!


Good prep last night--I was asleep before 10 and only woke up a couple of times. I got a pretty solid 7-8 hours and felt good when I woke up at 6 for a 7 am race start (oh my goodness, I LOVE living 2 miles from the start line...that was so nice! And parking was a breeze). Going in I knew two things: it was going to be REALLY cold and REALLY windy. So I mentally geared myself up for that but holy cow, it was so cold when I got into my car this morning! Got my timing chip and then waited 25 minutes in the cold for the late timing people to arrive--they got a flat on the way there, so the timing clock didn't even get set up until about three miles in, but I had my Garmin so it didn't bother me. RD announced at the start that one guy there was running his 1,645th marathon...I can't even figure out how you can logistically do that, since he ran 244 last year (does he count 26.2 runs alone? Or only official marathons?). I couldn't see the crazy marathon guy, which is a shame because I wanted to catch up with him and ask a few questions!

Mile 1: 10:07--This was my slowest mile and that was exactly how I wanted to play it! Just took it easy warming up and let all the people who wanted to go out like crazy pass me (then I passed them all a few minutes later when they were walking and gasping for breath). There were 3 start times offered and everyone who wanted a BQ had to start at 9 am, so the 7 am start was pretty slow-paced, which was nice because I passed people hundreds of times and only got passed myself less than a dozen or so! But there was never a time where I was running next to someone and could talk for a minute or two, which always makes the race feel longer for me.

Mile 2: 9:29--Let myself pick it up a little. Felt better than the previous lap as I was warming up.

Mile 3: 9:13--Settling into the pace a little too much. Faster than I wanted to go.

Mile 4: 9:21--Took water and a honey stinger during this mile (about 3.2), slowed a few seconds to find my bottle. Water table arrangement was interesting--they wanted a zero-waste race so we all brought water bottles, picked them up off tables (labeled spots EXCEPT for relay runners, which the website didn't mention, so that was a little frustrating when I first got there--I ended up with a spot at the very end of the last table which was just before the drop-bottle zone, so I had only a couple seconds to drink before the drop zone). Volunteers then refilled the bottles and put them back on their spots.

Mile 5: 9:13 again.

Mile 6: 9:21--Water/honey stinger at 5.2

Mile 7: 9:25--loop course started to get really old mentally by this point. About a third of a mile was down a long straightaway sidewalk where we had to run single file and pass on the left; I was mostly passing people and they weren't being very careful about running to the right, so it was a pain saying "ON YOUR LEFT" every few seconds. Just a really long boring stretch that was all on concrete and then the wind picked up and I spent the entire sidewalk thinking, "This stinks, still a lot of miles to go" kind of thoughts.

Mile 8: 9:34--Water/honey stinger at 7.2. Wind started to pick up and the 1/3 mile concrete sidewalk started to slowly turn into a wind tunnel. Mentally calculating how much "banked" time I had and how much I could slow to compensate for the wind in order to still hit my goals.

Mile 9: 9:34--Wind tunnel; just kept reminding myself that I only had 4 more miles.

Mile 10: 9:52--Water/honey stinger at 9.2; wind picking up more and more. Walked for ten seconds  when I grabbed my bottle so I could actually swallow with the wind buffeting me in the face. Kept reminding myself to run by effort and let the time take care of itself. This was probably the hardest mile--the wind was just miserable and there was still a 5K to go.

Mile 11: 9:49--9 am runners started and the course got way more crowded! Lots more weaving around people, and sadly not just runners--there were TONS of people walking the opposite way from the runners on the part of the course closest to the parking lot. The ground was super muddy and sloppy, so I understand why they were doing it, but it was still super frustrating to be dodging spectators and I definitely lost some time in consequence. Saw my kids & DH at the very end of this mile and I was so tired I didn't even recognize them at first until they started yelling "Go Mommy!" Wind increasingly worse.

Mile 12: 10:06--Water at 11.2--except my waterbottle was empty!!! Volunteers hadn't refilled it, and I had to turn around, double back, and grab the bottle I'd brought for my husband, which took a good 20 seconds and was SUPER frustrating. (Would have skipped it if I wasn't pregnant, but I get a little freaked out about dehydration during pregnancy since it gives me super bad headaches.) Couldn't take a honey stinger because my stomach wasn't feeling too hot. This was also when the RD decided to tack on the .2 so we ran against the WORST WIND of the entire race to get the .2. Ugh! So not at the point when I wanted to break from the loop part and run something new headlong into the wind...

Mile 13: 9:27--3 of my kids ran parts of this mile with me off and on (they were on the grass so they were SO muddy by the end!). Totally cried watching their little smiling faces bouncing along next to me (my five-year-old kept handing me flowers to hold so that was a little interesting...haha!). I was so happy to be done with that darn wind! I was pretty sad though when my husband was a little further on than 13.1 and I had to keep running to hand off my timing chip...

Mile 14 (not really, but it felt like it!)...getting all 5 of my kids the half-mile to the car when my two-year-old wanted to be carried and my hands were so cold I could barely close them around him to keep him from falling off my hip...I did NOT think about that take-the-kids-home aspect when we planned this! It was probably the hardest part since I was so tired and not quite mentally ready to shift back into being a responsible person who had to keep track of other people and then get them all home!! Fortunately my older kids were great helpers!

Overall, I'm really happy with how the race went. I definitely ran as hard as I could run today, and I felt pretty evenly crummy throughout but could still pick it up just a bit at the end, which is always my measure of whether I'm running hard enough--if I'm enjoying it the whole time, I know I'm going too slow.  I did purposefully run a little faster in the first half since the forecast said the wind was going to be 22 mph faster in the second half and I knew I would have to slow down to keep the effort consistent (I know, I know, the dubious time-banking strategy!)

9:35 overall which was only 5 seconds/mile slower than my fastest run this entire training cycle (and that was only 6 miles). And I'm SO glad that I'm done with the nausea of early pregnancy, since most of my training runs were pretty darn miserable! It was interesting doing the loop course--in some ways it was really nice since I always knew what to expect and there were NO HILLS. But it did kind of stink to have the only cheering people/interaction with anyone located in a 20-meter section of the course. I did really like the multiple start times and the RD was absolutely outstanding! Definitely one I would do again, especially since it was so inexpensive!

Training: this was probably the pregnancy where I have felt most nauseated, so some of those runs were REALLY hard, coupled with the fact that I'm still trying to build back from the fracture and so it was a really tricky balance between running long/fast enough to train for a race, and not running so much that I spent the night awake with throbbing pain in my leg (yes, that happened a few times, and it was so not fun). But on the bright side, I did NOT have ovarian cysts bursting during my runs like I did when I was pregnant with Nathan, so that was pretty darn awesome!!!! All in all I am SUPER proud of myself for building back to running this kind of distance at a time when it took some serious willpower to get myself out there since I was starting from nothing (I had to go all the way back to running 1 minute, walking 2 minutes) while also dealing with the nausea and fatigue and general pregnancy pain/lack of sleep.