First half-marathon of the year...done...finished...history. Personally, I am hoping that the next 5 go a lot smoother than this. I have never in my entire running career been this frustrated before, during and after a half-marathon. It was certainly not one that I could write about how I did 13.1 and was still smiling.
So, the race I ran this past weekend was the 2nd Riverfront Race Festival's Charleston Half-Marathon. I figured since Charleston hosts the Cooper River Bridge Run and it goes fairly well, they would do well with this one. They definitely have some room for improvement, but that's a growing pain issue so hopefully they will listen to the runners and make some changes. Here's how my weekend panned out...
Friday, Chuck and I did a great stretching session with my trainer, Tripp before heading back to the house, showering, grabbing a quick lunch and heading to Charleston. Tripp gave me a thumbdrive with the MP3s that he spent about 2 hours recording for me to go on my iPod. I was so very stoked about them and couldn't wait to listen to them. My plan was to download them on to the playlist and then strategically place a message every several minutes (depending upon how many there were). When I went to put them on the computer, I discovered the first disappointment of the weekend...they were not on the thumbdrive. Tripp was really upset. However, as I told him, he told me the one thing I needed to hear from him on Thursday when we were training. He told me that even if I had to walk the whole race and did my absolute best, that he would still be proud of me. That meant so much to me. I cannot wait to get the MP3s from him tomorrow and listen to them and use them at my next race in March.
Also, on Friday, we picked up our race packets, bibs and t-shirts. We got in there and got everything with relative ease. After grabbing all the information, we both realized that neither of us remembered what time the race started and where the start line was. I knew where we would be parking (near the start) but that was it. So, I scoured their website for the information and could not find it anywhere. I searched for the information in one of the pre-race e-mails they sent us and found nothing. Thankfully, on one of the e-mails we had a phone number of someone to call. After calling the number, I found out that our race started at 8 a.m. and we needed to be just a short distance away from the parking garage area for the start.
We ate our pre-race dinner at an amazing little restaurant in Mt. Pleasant. You should totally check this place out if you are feeling Italian. La Pizzeria was delicious. We ordered a fusilli con pollo dish (cream sauce with homemade fusilli noodles, pan-fried pancetta, chicken, and artichokes) and a pizza with black olives, artichokes, mushrooms and sausage. The pizza was okay...a bit pricey and they tend to have their specials as what you would maybe expect at true Italian restaurants. The fusilli dish was delicious...I believe we both could have enjoyed having our own plate rather than sharing!! Yummy :) After pre-race dinner, we headed back to the hotel and started planning out race day and preparing.
We got up about 5:45 on race morning. The plan was to get dressed, grab breakfast and leave the hotel a bit before 7 and get to the start line early. When we woke up, it was about 27 degrees outside with about a 4 mph windchill. Yep, that's chilly. I grabbed our preworkout (1MR) and mixed doses for us both. Then, I got the rest of my gear ready to go. We left the hotel about 7:15 and got to the parking area by 7:30. We finished getting ready by the car, drank our preworkout and headed to the start line. It was soooooo cold out!!!!
It was a confusing start line area. As we were walking up, people were warming up by walking or running in the direction we were coming from. There was no clear delineation that we were in fact near the start line. And it made me a bit nervous. I took a few pictures for Chuck since this was his first ever half-marathon and then we waited for the start. The gun went off and we had the slowest run ever to get started. Once the path cleared up a bit, we were able to do more than walk towards the start line. I crossed over and that might very well be the last time I saw Chuck...he was in the zone!
This race, I really was focused on closing in on my best race time from last February (3:07:12)...that was the race where I tore my labrum in my hip. I wanted to beat my best time. I won't lie, I was hoping to beat that time. I ran Myrtle Beach in October...my first half since surgery and ran it in 3:16:11. So, I was really wanting to improve my time and of course, for me looking for that elusive under 3 hour half-marathon. So, I had a good mindset. There were no doubts about whether I could finish or fears that I wouldn't make it in under 3:30. I was ready.
For the first 6 miles or so, I kept a pretty awesome pace. I was pounding out the miles and focusing. I promised both Chuck and Tripp not to make friends on this race and get sidetracked from my goal. I know that I have that habit and I needed to focus on my race. So, I kept to myself. It was me and my iPod. My playlist was a selection of all female music...it was a Girl Power list :) The mile markers were really well-placed for the first 9 miles or so. Every two miles, there was a water and gatorade station. About mile 4, I drank a gatorade (grape flavored), this was not a wise choice for me. I would later around mile 10 end up having it come back to visit but not puking it. Yuck!
About 2 hours and 20 minutes into the race, I was running perhaps one of my best races ever. I was on par for finishing really close to that 3 hour mark. I was not feeling any pain yet and was keeping a pretty great pace. Round about that time, a police man drove by on a motorcycle announcing that all runners and walkers needed to "get on the sidewalk if you are going to continue or get on the bus as it is passing you." Seriously, the bus was already picking people up and well, I have been in a position where I have known the bus was somewhere behind me and knew that I had to keep moving faster to stay off the bus. But I am now running my best race and I am being passed by the bus. I freaked out. And not just a minor freak out. This broke my concentration. It broke my spirit and definitely broke my pace.
After being passed by the bus, I figured this would be the end of the insults. I was wrong. The bus passing me was the start of it. Then, several of us would determine that they were no longer blocking off streets and the volunteers were now very sparse. There were several streets where myself and other runners had to wait for traffic to pass. I will admit as soon as I saw no cars, I hauled butt across the street and did not wait for the traffic sign to notate that it was safe to cross. I hit about 3 of these situations and got angrier each time. Then, the mile markers became sparse and with few volunteers, I became a bit more frantic. At one point, there were two runners about 15 feet ahead of me and other runners were crossing to the other side of the street but I could not determine why. I kept following the two runners in front of me who eventually crossed the street and then they turned down a side street. By the time I turned down the side street, they had all but disappeared!! I was freaked out. I managed to determine which way they went and followed them as quickly as I could. At this point, I just barely missed being hit by two cars in the neighborhood we were now running through!!
We were also promised bananas and hammer gels at mile 10. There were barely cups of water and gatorade at mile 10 and there certainly were not volunteers handing out cups. I had to grab my own. I guess I should be thankful that I didn't have to pour my own cups! At mile 11, I ended up not watching the road closely enough and stepped into a big pothole and twisted my ankle. Ouch! It wasn't a horrible twist but enough to start giving my left calf real issues when I was running. I started having horrible leg cramps in that calf! I got through the worst of it. I admit it was really difficult for me though when the 10k runners who were finishing up joined the course. They were running past me looking so refreshed and one of them turned to me and said "Come on. You can do this." I barely resisted the urge to be ugly. I was hurting at this point and angry and unfocused, but I soldiered on because they would be handing me my medal!
Mile 12, while the scenery was beautiful while we ran through a Riverfront park, was the longest mile ever...it seemed to wind on and on. Every time I thought I was closer to the finish, there was another twist and turn. Then finally, there was the finish line. I was so ready to cross the line. I did so and grabbed my medal and had my finishers' photo taken.
I found Chuck with somewhat ease. Speedy Gonzales ran the race 2:20:12. He encountered a few issues along the way including losing both headphones during the race and not having any music. He said it was quite difficult to run a race for 2.5 miles counting just your pace and breaths! I am quite thankful my headphones did not break (we bought new 180s headphone earwarmers for the race...great cold weather plan when the earphones aren't defective!) Also, he was unable to find any Gatorade or electrolyte drinks following the race. So, as he waited for me to cross the line, he ended up crashing. He threw up a few times and after I crossed we found a water station with bananas and oranges. Never found any Gatorade. We ended up getting on the bus to head back to the start line and parking garage. We ended up sitting in the back of the short bus (no seats just in the cargo area) and that was interesting. There were 7 of us cramped in the back. The driver asked us to sit down on the floor. At this point, Chuck got a huge calf cramp and my left hip locked completely. A little bit further on the ride, my right hip locked and Chuck started getting really pale and looked like he was about to puke again. Luckily, there was no puking on the bus. But in the parking garage, he spent a good 2 minutes puking.
I got him back to the hotel and threw him in the shower and tried to help him through the crash as best I could. It was horrible. I got cleaned up and nursed him for awhile. Then I grabbed lunch for us about 3 hours after the race (not smart for me!) and both of us had trouble eating. It was a stellar post race.
One would think with all that going on that I would be relieved when I finally got my race results in. It was at least what I had hoped for...a culmination of all my hard effort. No. It was not to be. I wore both my Garmin Forerunner and my iPod Sport for the race. I started the iPod as soon as I started running and I turned the Garmin on a bit late. And I ended up turning off the iPod a bit late. So, nothing I had on me had the correct time. Results finally got posted and Chuck got his official time. I was very excited for him and went to find my results. I searched and searched and searched and found no results for me. I have been angry before when I didn't get a finish line photo but to not have your time recorded is the worst. I knew for a fact that I hit the pad both on starting and finishing. The only thing I could figure was that the night before I had noticed that Chuck's timing chip was at the bottom of his bib and mine was at the top....but could that really have made the difference?
Luckily, I had that phone number I had called the day before about the time of the race and I took a chance that maybe someone might answer. As luck would have it, it was the phone number for the director of the race. He gave me an e-mail address for the timing company and promised they would fix it. And I gave him an earful about the royal screw-ups from the race. I made a point of letting him know that I was not new to this game and this was my 5th half-marathon. I know it's only their 2nd year, but they need to step up their game considerably.
After having the wind completely knocked out of my sails, I finally got my race results today. I ran the race in 3:10:41. This means I shaved 5:30 off of my time from October. And I am only 3:29 off of my best time. I am hopeful that Tripp and I can keep working and shave more of that off before my next half in March.
Ultimately, I am pleased with my results. After all that struggle, I can honestly say I earned the cheap medal and ugly t-shirt. I have felt exhausted and like I have been run over by a bus for the past couple of days. But the worst is over. I will take it easy this week and a little light next week and then back to training for the half in March. I am really hoping to close in on my under 3 hour half.
And just to seal the deal on having 3 half-marathons under my belt by the end of April, I scheduled my next appointment with my tattoo artist today to add 3 more flowers to the ankle tattoo :) Oh yeah...it's on. Columbia in March and Palmetto in April :) I also got a little focusing reminder added today while I was scheduling...my mantra is now on my arm for me to read when training and running..."NO EXCUSES". Oh yeah, bring on the next two half-marathons...I am ready!
