My first half marathon to run in over a year. It was good, bad and ugly. I trained hard with the OKC RunHers group and my friend Esther. We put in many miles together. We would get up at the crack of dawn to do our training runs before work and with the group on Saturday mornings and when one of us couldn't run on Saturday we met and ran Sunday bright and early. I loved having a running partner, she kept me company and pushed me to keep going.
I was totally ready and pumped for this race... but unfortunately a great training experience doesn't always make for a great race.
My weekend started with an easy run Friday night, just a couple miles and then hanging out with my bf. Saturday morning I went to yoga where I stretched and relaxed and felt great until I attempted a hand stand. I have been wanting to accomplish this feet since I started really practicing yoga 5 or so times a week the month before. I have managed to do a handstand with my awesome instructor's, Hannah, assistance but I wanted to do to it by myself! so I tried... and I failed. I hopped a couple times and ended up feeling a pain in my left shoulder blade. I left class sad but quickly forgot about it as I went home to pack and get ready for the race.
On our way to Lawton I noticed every time I turned my head to the left I had pain in my shoulder blade. It felt like I had a crick in my neck. I kept telling myself I could work it out and tomorrow morning it won't be there. More on that to come.
Esther and I checked in to the hotel and got our packets, I bought a new super cute sports bra from the Fleet Feet vendor along with some awesome GU chomps to use during the race the next day. We headed to Wal-Mart to get some grub for breakfast and I needed a tutu for the race. Esther and I decided we would be superheroes in honor of the theme Hulkin Half. We got pillow cases that we made into super cute capes by adding sparkly lighting bolts to and Esther got us lighting bolts for our shoes that were so stickin' cute! We got some beer and pizza and went to the room to eat drink and be super. It was nice and relaxing. We went down for the speakers to pump us up for the race and had a drink with our fellow RunHers. It was a great prerace evening. I was ready!
We got up at 6am ate our breakfast, and became super heroes. Our outfits were awesome! We walked to the race corral with the other women from RunHers and were ready for that start gun.
We talked about our plan to do negative splits and decided to go for it. However right from the start we were excited and started running our usual pace. We bobbed and weaved around some walkers and we walked for our 5mins after every 10min run. We were feeling great! We weren't going faster than our usual pace but we weren't slower either. The energy of the race was high! Esther cheered on every runner that turned around (there was a quarter marathon as well). I was feeding off her energy. I tried to pay attention to my pace but we never really slowed down. We got to our half way point and got some free GU. We broke out the Chomps and had been feeding off Swedish fish until that point. I had drank water at every stop.
I could feel myself starting to get tired but was determined to push through it for the second half. The temps were rising and I was feeling it. We sped up our running and walking pace and were cutting down our time mile by mile. I started having a hard time breathing and stopped talking. Esther was to think of any topic to talk about to get my mind off being breathless. She spoke Spanish and French to me haha, it was entertaining.
About mile 10 I knew my body was at it's max. I thought maybe I could do 5/5 intervals but once I started walking more my legs just didn't want to run. I started feeling nauseous and as I walked I tried to stretch my back a little and could just feel the tension get worse in my shoulders and lower back. I have never had back paint like that when running. I knew the next 3 miles were going to be a huge struggle for me. I told Esther at mile 11 that I was done running. She went ahead of me and I pushed myself through the last 2 miles. The whole time I wanted to quit. I had hit my wall hard! I started to get really sick feeling and cold before I finished. I'm still not 100% sure what happened to me but I think my electrolyte levels were at an all time low. I didn't drink anything but water, and a lot of it the whole race. I only have some Swedish fish and chomps which could be enough but I should have had some more earlier on as well as some Gatorade.
I was pretty grumpy the rest of the day, but so happy for Esther! I finished in 2:55 and she finished in 2:48! We both were shooting for under 3 hours.
We celebrated with a huge burger from Meers, OK. I only had a couple bites since I was still having stomach issues. I also got to take a nap and wonderful shower before heading home. Every shower after a race is the best shower. After my harder races I sometimes wonder... why am I doing this. Then I start planning my training for the next half marathon, Nov 23rd Route 66 see you at the start line!
Gotta run ;)
