I accidentally posted this on Married Life first...
Okay, I did my first half in June (recap), and finished in 2:17. Since it was 85 degrees during that race, I was confident I could improve on that time with better weather, and since I’ve been seeing improvements in my running since I got a lifting coach, I was optimistic about this half. I wanted to do 2:00 or better.
The forecast was looking good, rain bracketing race day on Saturday and Monday, but Sunday was supposed to be overcast and cool with no rain.
I’d told my coach that I was tapering that week for the half, and he said he’d write something for our Wednesday session that didn’t have a lot of heavy lifts… which I guess he forgot about because we did deficit deadlifts, and I can’t turn down a challenge (got up to 185!). Friday I did a long session of stretching and rolling, and realized my legs were rrrrreally fucking tight. Whoops.
Wednesday, MH came home with a cold. I cursed, threatened his life, and disinfected every surface in the apartment. That worked for a few days, but I woke up sick on Saturday. I cursed some more, cancelled the volunteer shift I had, and went back to bed for some more sleep.
That day I was reading reviews of previous races, and people said that the bag check and portapatty situation were a mess, so I wanted to leave extra early, even though my wave (wave 2) didn’t start until 8:30. So I got to bed at 9pm, didn’t get to sleep until 11:30 because the downstairs neighbors were having a party (bummer, but it is Saturday night), which went all the way until 5am. I’m truly impressed by their party stamina. I was a little disappointed because as I lay awake, I’d been fantasizing about stomping around in the wee hours of the morning, but they were still cleaning things up at 5:30 when I was getting ready.
I caught my train in the nick of time, and was there in plenty of time for the 6:30am ferry, which was PACKED. I felt sorry for the regular commuters, and was glad I caught the early ferry because the 7am ferry must have been a mad house. Watched the sunrise as we crossed the harbor, and popped some Dayquil. It was high 40s and windy and felt icy. The only portapotties were after you went through security, and you had to turn in your bag before you went through security, so I was balancing really needing to pee, and not wanting to give up my extra layers to early. Dropped off my bag and went through security about 7:30, and then got in line for the portapotties. I timed it, and it took 18 minutes in line to get to a portapotty. A BUNCH of first wave runners missed their wave and had to start with wave 2 because they were waiting in line.
There was no space at all for warming up once you’re through security, it’s just portapotties and then the corrals. So I did some active stretching and that was that. I got into my corral which was the first one in wave 2. I spotted the 2:00 pacers, and figure I’d keep an eye on them and see how that felt for the first few miles. My feet were completely numb, and I had to pee again. Ditched my sweatshirt, and then we were off.
I had planned to jog through aid stations and take just a couple of sips at every one, which I stuck with (except for the aid station right at the hairpin turnaround, too messy), but at the same time, I had to pee. Every time I went past an aid station, I was checking to see if there was a line for the portapottys — there always was — and calculating whether I could hold it for another 12 miles… 11 miles… etc. I stuck with the 2:00 pacers and that felt pretty good. After mile 1 my body was warmed up, after mile 2 I could feel my feet again. My legs were still really tight, especially the left one (my bad knee), and it wasn’t till after mile 4 that they really felt good and loose. Note to self: don’t try for a deadlift PR a few days before a race.
After mile 3ish I was warmed up and feeling good, and decided to set my own pace, moving up past the 2:00 pacers. All went well, chugging along, passing mile markers faster (mentally) than I expected. Then right around 7.5 miles, my brain goes: “I want to walk” Me: “What?? Body feels fine. We don’t need to walk.” Brain: “I wanna WALK.” Me: “No! There’s no reason to walk.” Brain: “I. Want. To. Walk.” Me: “Leave me alone!!”
Then “Waka Waka” came on my playlist, and I was like “HOW ABOUT NOW” and my brain said: “Yeah, okay, let’s run!”
At about mile 8, you head into Fort Tyron, which is a steep nasty little hill, then you loop around through the fort, do another steep nasty hill, and get some really beautiful views of the harbor and the Verazzano bridge. Long slow hills can be soul-sucking for me, but steep ones just make me work harder. I passed a lot of people on the hills. Right at mile 10, I started an internal battle with my stomach.
Stomach: I have to poop!! Me: Oh shit. [checking out the portapotty lines] No, I think you’ll be okay. Stomach: I REALLY have to poop Me: Noooo, you can hold it! We’re almost there. Stomach: Are you sure? Maybe we’ll poop a little RIGHT NOW while you run. Me: Nope! No, it’s just another 5K. That’s so close, I promise
And then I concentrated on forgetting that I had a stomach, or a bladder, which *usually* works for me in races. At about every half mile after that, my stomach would pop up to remind me “I have to poooooooop” and I would say “don’t worry, we’re almost there!”
You run along the water then for a bit, and a kid was holding my favorite sign with a Mario Mushroom that said “tap to power up.” The last half mile of the race features 3 uphills, but I put my head down and powered on. Usually when I see the finish line, my legs start powering up for a sprint, through no conscious effort of my own, but this time I was hoping that I could just manage to keep running for the last .1 mile. It wasn’t until I saw the photographer right at the finish line that I felt a bit of a lift.
This is the picture of that moment:
I crossed the line, got my medal and a foil wrap, and plopped down on a curb with a cup of water. Between the physical effort and my cold, I sounded like a seal barking when I breathed, haha. I didn’t have the mental energy to subtract my wave’s start time from the clock at the finish line, so I went online to check results for my finish time. 1:51:54! I blew away my goal of 2:00, and improved on my first half from June by 25 minutes!! (2:17:30).
I started crying (happy) while I texted my sister, then got up to poop, finally!! And couldn’t actually poop. Ah, fickle stomach. I snagged the ferry back, and by the time I got off in the city, I was STARVING so I treated myself to chicken and waffles, which I could only eat a bit of before my fickle stomach decided to get really queasy and I finally did poop (huzzah). Then home for a shower and nap.
I’m so, so happy with my result. I’ve been miserably sick with this cold for the rest of the week, so running the half certainly made it worse, but it was TOTALLY worth it. It was weird that there was really no race support, even though a large portion of the course runs along streets lined with houses. There was almost nobody outside.
Also, here are some of my classically terrible race photos: