Urban Bourbon Half Marathon

Once again, the morning of the race I’m feeling like doing anything else BUT run a 13.1 miler. But…the weather was extremely nice (overcast and 49 degrees), so I put on the normal running gear and out the door Jim and I went to run my twenty-second half marathon. The night before, I had been out with a group of new lady-friends that I had just met to talk running and triathlon. Being out until nearly 10 p.m., having very little to eat, and not completing my night-before ritual of laying all of my clothes, Garmin, running belt, shoes, etc. out gives you an idea of where my mind was. Not on this race. But by the time we got to the starting line, I had luckily found some motivation. Jim and I ran this race last year (it was his first half), and we had talked about sticking together throughout the race again this year and doing my normal run-a-mile, walk-a-minute intervals. So when the gun went off, this plan is what I fully expected, until Jim let it be known that he had to pee. Great. This early in the race you just KNOW all the porta-pots are gonna be crazy-busy, and for some reason, even though he’s a dude, he refuses to just find a bush and save some time. A mile in I tell him that we need to take our walk break. He tells me that he is going to find a place to use the bathroom and we’ll catch up again just ahead. Well…. four miles into the race we still hadn’t caught up with one another, and having him in my sights the whole time and not seeing him stop for the restroom had me seething mad. This probably gave me the motivation to run that first four as fast as I did (10:05, 10:05, 10:00 and 9:36, respectively). Because I had made it my purpose to eventually catch up with him, coupled with the fact that it didn’t appear that he was taking any walk breaks himself, I had cut my walk breaks down and had just taken my second one 2.5 miles in. Just before the 4 mile marker I caught up with him and voiced my disappointment that he took off and left me. Continuing on at my mad-as-hell pace, I didn’t want him to catch back up just yet so I didn’t take my third walk break until the 5-mile marker (10:13). I was feeling great though, and when we finally did meet up again, Jim explained that he didn’t mean to leave me, but he was feeling good and had run his first three miles in 27 minutes and didn’t want to stop. Of course, I told him I was fine with this – I mean, who am I to keep someone from hauling ass when they’re feeling in the zone during a race? We ran the next 2-3 miles together, but since miles six (11:19) and seven (11:54) were so darn hilly, I lost a bit of that momentum I started with and my tired body began to feel it. Doing some math as I crossed the seven mile marker, I realized that if I finished out the last six at 11 minutes each, I’d be looking at a PR. Since I was still feeling decent at this point, I knew there was a good chance this could happen. Unfortunately, both my mind and my body got the best of me shortly thereafter, and I started to drag a bit. By mile 8 (10:53) my left knee was bothering me quite a bit, and the shorts that I’m so used to wearing decided to pick that day to enact revenge my riding up, leaving my poor thighs exposed to one another, causing a great deal of chafing – ouch! As we curved back up Grinstead , a nasty-long hill mind you, I ended up having to take yet another extended walk break, which set me back quite a bit pace-wise. Even taking advantage of the bystander holding the sign reading, “Touch here for power,” didn’t help my ninth mile (11:37). Coming down Baxter and then hooking a left back towards Muhammad Ali I wanted nothing more than this race to be over. I knew that my run-a-mile, walk-a-minute plan was no longer an option since my poor body just didn’t have it anymore. I trudged along as best I could until passing mile ten (11:24) and then decided to revisit my strategy. I knew that walking the last three miles would just be miserable, as well as accomplish little more than prolonging the pain, so that was out. I decided I would run one block, then walk one block, but half-way through the first walk portion it felt like TOO MUCH walking, so instead I decided to run a block and a half, walk a half a block. That seemed like a good compromise, and since my body was able to handle just that little bit we went for it. At mile 11 (11:46), which was near Second and Muhammad Ali, I began asking people if they knew how far down we went before heading back towards Main. Nobody knew, so I was never able to count down the blocks of these last two miles. Luckily as I saw the 12 mile marker (11:57), I also saw the right-hand turn taking us back towards the home stretch, and I was never so happy in all my life to be nearly done with a race (Okay, that’s probably not true, but it always seems so at the time – amiright?) My body was still keeping up with my block by block plan, and I continued on this journey until the very end. Even when the finish line was in sight I continued my walk breaks just so I’d have enough gas to keep me going strong down the finish chute. I passed the 13 mile marker (12:14) and a woman who passed me began egged me on to start running again. Her encouragement must have been just what I needed because I picked up the pace and headed home, finishing the race in an official 2:24:07 – my second best Half Marathon finish. Even though those last six miles were fairly rough, the first seven made this a pretty decent race for me. I felt good for the most part, my mind was in a good place and my Orange Theory workouts have continued to prove they are paying off. If anything, I know for sure that I need to devote more time to long distance training runs – which is always a problem for me. But, I guess the next two weekends will show where my strengths and weaknesses really are as I conquer the Indianapolis Monumental and Nashville half marathons. Five races in 6 weeks – am I nuts?! Guess time will tell if this was a good idea or not!