I knew going into this one that my main constraints were going to be lack of training, ongoing healing from delivery, and lack of sleep, and sadly there wasn't much I could do about any of them! Thursday night I got about 2 hours of sleep, so I went to bed as early as I could on Friday and was asleep by 9. I woke up around midnight absolutely soaked in sweat and freezing cold (one of those lousy hormonal post-delivery things that hits me every 3rd or 4th night), so I changed all my clothes, rolled up in a dry blanket, and tried to sleep a little more, then at 1 am Matthew's swing totally gave up the ghost. Fed him at 1, 3, and 5 with about 80 minutes of sleep in between each feeding, then got up at 6:45 and got ready. Drove down to the parking lot and fed him in the car again up until the last possible minute in hopes that he wouldn't go crazy before I was done!
I found my friend who was running her first half--we run different paces but were thinking we'd hang together for the first few miles and see how it went pace-wise. We lined up with the 10/mm pacer since she told me she normally ran about 9:30-9:40/mile and wanted a 2:10 finish, so I figure we would shoot for around 9:55 average for the first couple of miles and see how that felt. . Started off out of the stadium parking lot and first mile along Cherry was 9:38--I felt kind of bad because I kept telling her to slow down on this mile--that adrenaline is hard to combat! We walked through the water stop in the second mile (10:07), but she was already struggling with the pace and asked me multiple times to just go ahead. I felt pretty bad leaving her but I also didn't want her to feel pressure to go faster and I knew I couldn't slow much and still make it back before Matthew got crazy hungry.
Third mile was 9:41--nothing really interesting about this. Walked through the water stop again hoping my friend would catch up but when I couldn't see her I figured she was too far back and I needed to just run my own race. 4th mile we got the first decent downhill on Salisbury (9:26) and then the fifth mile was almost all downhill across the bridge to Lafayette (9:06) and skipped the water stop. I was taking Honey Stinger chews every 2.5 so I grabbed my second one here. This mile also made me realize that I couldn't go much faster than the 9:30 pace, since I started to really feel it in my pelvis (that's been getting steadily better since delivery but I sure didn't want to push it!), so I took it back a notch and felt much better.
6th mile was 9:39. This is where we started to hit the hills again in Lafayette that I was dreading, so I reminded myself to just keep a consistent effort and not worry about pace. Ran under one of the church clock towers just as it started chiming, which was really nice coupled with all the steeples and scenic downtown/fall leaves. Walked through the next water stop and slowed a bit with the hills to keep effort the same for mile 7 at 9:59. Mile 8 back over the bridge was 9:36 and then mile 9 with the first of the hills I was REALLY dreading was 9:53...that's the seemingly eternal gradual uphill to Chauncey. It really wouldn't be that bad except all the short steep rollers preceding it in Lafayette wear you out and it's at that crappy point in the race where you've come a long way but haven't hit the double digits yet, so it still feels like a long way left! Then we ran forever through campus, which is a different route than I remembered, so I kept wondering when the heck we were going to turn (and also trying to not think about the fact that I could just turn NOW and be back at the parking lot within 5 minutes!).
Finally turned and ran past the new Co-Rec for mile 10 at 9:37, then down the Engineering Mall and tried to mentally gear up for miles 11 (9:56) and 12 (10:14), which were the second set of hills I was dreading--the two back to back hills on Stadium (mile marker 11 was just before the top of the first hill) and then immediate right turn to McCormick and more uphill. I seriously felt like I could have been walking faster on this part than I was running at the 11-mile marker--this was also the first place where I noticed a headwind during the whole race (of course!). I told myself it would turn into a tailwind during the last mile, but I know my HR was awful at this point and I felt pretty nauseated and awful. Once we cleared the hills I felt much better and was able to enjoy the last mile (9:34) and passed SO MANY PEOPLE, which is always nice to do that late in the race! I was consistently passing about three times as many people as were passing me for most of the race, but in the last mile I passed 34 people and was only passed once, which was nice. Downhill to the finish and last .14 was 1:03. Passed DH and kids as I ran into the finish chute, then met up with them and waited a good 30 minutes for the kids' fun run (which gave me the opportunity to sit down suddenly before passing out, wish that there were more Porta-Potties, and very classily feed my baby on a curb underneath a giant blanket). Walked the half-mile to the car, which really helped with post-race stiffness, then home to my shower and some Tylenol with codeine for my grumpy body that was like "are you kidding, just had a baby, let's lie around and eat cupcakes instead of this craziness."
Chip times still haven't been posted; Garmin time for 13.14 was 2:07:26 (9:42/mile).
Random thoughts:
1) Kids' fun run was AWESOME. I loved loved loved this part. Look at the hand-holding! The intensity!! (Jules was feverish and Isaac kept her company.)
2) Neil went to the store after dropping me off, bought cider, and then added his signature spice blend to it and brought me a thermos of hot spiced cider. That was pretty much the best post-race drink ever...I always get SO freezing cold after a race and that was the perfect antidote! Three cheers for him!
3) My current PR is on this course. I hate this course in terms of runnability--there are so many hills--pretty much the entire time you are going up or down, and the big downhill is in the first part of the race, so the last half really is rough. It's beautiful and you run past lots of gorgeous trees (fall is the perfect time for this!) but I wonder what kind of PR I would be able to set at the Mini?
3) I'm really glad I ran so much through my pregnancy. It got pretty hard at the end there with nerve pain in my leg, and I can tell that I'm not 100% healed, nor do I have the fitness that I would have liked to have, but all in all, I don't feel like I crashed and burned during the race the way I was worried I might. :-)
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