Three Rivers Trail Half Marathon Race Recap, with Loosely Related Gifs

My goals for the half marathon I ran over the weekend, in descending importance:

1. Not have an asthma attack.
2. Treat it as something I get to do, not have to do, because for crying out loud that is what it is.
3. Run a smart race; specifically, not get caught up in the energy at the start line and go out too fast, fuel appropriately throughout, do frequent checks on my form to keep myself light and upright.  
4. Do my best in whatever circumstances I find myself in Saturday morning.
5. Beat my previous half marathon time.
6. Finish somewhere around the two hour mark.
7. *Secret stretch goal* Finish under two hours.

Let's break it down.

The list, I mean.  Although if it's hammer time and you want to break it down, I say do it.

1.  Remember two years ago when I had an awful asthma attack around miles 4 through 7 of my first half mary and it slowed me waaaaay down and I wanted to die and the whole running+asthma thing wore me out so badly I got home, went straight to bed, and slept like the dead for two hours?

I do.  I remember that.

Asthma isn't something that's easily controllable in the moment; I mean, that's kind of the nature of the beast.  There are things I can do to set myself up for asthma success (or... something), however, like doing my best to remain calm, taking my allergy meds, and keeping my inhaler with me.  Allergy pill an hour pre-race: check; inhaler in my fuel pouch thingy: check; remaining calm: well, that one's more or less on Mindy, my amazing friend who informed me a week ago she would be accompanying me to my race, even though it meant getting up before 5 AM and dedicating the bulk of her Saturday to an event she wasn't even participating in.  Having her to talk to in the car for the hour and a half drive there kept me calmer than anything, as it prevented me from dwelling in a pit of race anxiety and despair.

2.  Between various small injuries and an autumn jam-packed with change (all three kids in school, going from staying at home for ten years to two part-time jobs, etc, etc) and just being plain tired, I was feeling pretty burnt out on running.  I still loved it, but I was feeling more resentment than excitement over this stupid meany race I'd signed up for many moons ago.  This is ridiculous because NO ONE WAS MAKING ME DO THIS.  This one basically involved remembering gratitude and keeping the following in mind:

3.  I was in the middle of the pack at the starting line, and as soon as the gun went off (aka the app blared on the race director's phone, as this was a pretty small race), I was passed by a large number of the people running for the first half mile or so.  The following three miles, I stayed in the same position relative to all the other runners, then spent the remaining ten miles slowly passing most of those people who went out way too fast at the start.  This was exactly what I wanted to do, so hallelujah and pass the peaches.

My fueling was perfect thanks in large part to the race fuel fairy/ my friend Anne, who surprised me by dropping off a baggie of goodies at my front door last week.  Included was a packet of Huma gel, and as I discovered at mile 6 Saturday morning, this is my new favorite running gel.  I've tried GU, and it's fine, I've tried Clif gel, and the caffeine in it makes my stomach cramp, I've tried gummy bears, and while those work for me on my training runs, I've discovered I am unable to chew and run with any speed at the same time [insert walking and chewing gum joke here].  SO if you are a runner or endurance athlete-type person with a gut that is such a diva you've considered naming it after one of the Kardashians, I (and Anne the Wonder Triathlete!) recommend Huma.  Also of note is that the consistency of Huma is considerably less nasty than that of GU, at least to my palate.



4.  Stomach, weather, whatever, I wanted to make the best of whatever circumstances happened to occur Saturday morning, all toward that same goal of not being a miserable cow.  It's a good goal.



5 & 6.  My previous half marathon PR (personal record, rubes) wasn't great, due to the asthma and it being my first race, thus having no earthly idea what I was doing.  My primary goal in that race was to finish.  Fine, mission accomplished.  Anytime someone asked what time I was aiming for (as people are wont to do, I have found), my answer was around two hours.  I felt these were reasonable goals and well within my abilities.



7.  The goal I felt I could only accomplish if circumstances lined up and I had a great day was to finish in less than two hours.  Still within reach, but not if my stomach was acting up or it was raining or windy or the course was unexpectedly hilly or treacherous or strewn with hinkypunks.  I averaged a pace a bit under nine minutes per mile and finished comfortably under two hours, beating my previous time by 26 minutes.  This is a slow pace to many runners, but not this one. All this meant the first several miles felt great, the middle few miles still felt pretty good, and the final few felt hard up to the end, where believe me, I was toast.  But mentally, I was doing this:

Matter of fact, I still can't do that because HOLY HAMSTRINGS.  SO SORE.  Also I am not M.C. Hammer.  M.C. Hammerstrings?




Big fat juicy thanks to Derek for never ever ever complaining when I want/need to go for a run- even the multiple-hour ones that take up so much of our Saturday mornings;

to my mom for watching over our chitlins race morning and going above and beyond the call of duty by taking them to IHOP for breakfast, then shoe shopping, then walking on a nature trail, then introducing them to the wonders of Miracle on 34th Street when I made it perfectly clear she was welcome to just park them in front of the tv whilst I was running and Derek and Mark were golfing,

to Mindy for getting up hours before sunrise to distract me from my own horrible brain and being on the course at mile 3 to take my various layers I was suddenly too hot for and throwing at her feet, then at mile 12-point-something to take my phone because it was suddenly too heavy to carry anymore, then cheering and yelling me across the finish line, along with innumerable pep talks and being a darn good friend,

to Anne for the race treats and encouraging texts mid-race and always being willing to accept with good humor the unflattering selfies I take mid-run, along with innumerable pep talks and being a darn good friend,

to Derek's mom Becky for giving up her Saturday morning to drive up to the race and cheer me on, even though it wasn't the kind of course that easily allows for spectators and it took quite a bit of effort on her part for just a few seconds of "Hi, Kristy!" that nonetheless were encouraging to me,

to all the other people I'm forgetting because I'm a terrible person, and to you, because how on earth are you still reading this?,

and

to chocolate chunk brownies, forever and ever, amen.

All right, so these clearly aren't chocolate chunk brownies, but this *is* a gif that apparently has a subliminal image of historically-inaccurate white-skinned, blue-eyed Jesus.  HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO RESIST?

For My Next Half Marathon

Not that I'm definitely doing another one, you understand.



Things I would do differently:

• Carry my inhaler while running.  Do I have allergies?  Yes.  Do I have asthma?  Yes.  Have I had asthma attacks before on runs?  Yes.  And yet, stupid, idiotic, imbecilic, insert-your-own-favorite-adjective-that-describes-a-complete-ignoramus ME didn't carry any of my two dozen inhalers.  I know why:  I haven't had a running-related attack for a couple months now, have never had an attack during one of my long runs, and took an allergy pill before I left the house, thinking that would be enough.  Oh, Lawdy, WAS I WRONG.  Right around mile two I could feel my lungs tightening up, and for the next four miles couldn't draw anything deeper than a very, very shallow breath.  This sucked.  I almost gave up and walked close to the beginning of the attack, but saw a lovely, lovely friend of mine standing on the sidelines who cheered wildly when I yelled her name and she saw me, and this helped carried me through.  I kept running, I did not walk.  I saw her again just as my demon lungs were opening up and begrudgingly letting some oxygen back into my system, and I felt so much better after my Lori/oxygen hit.  

• Bring an allergy pill with me to the race, take it thirty minutes prior to start time.  I left the house so far in advance of the race, and was so nervous and, well, running so much, I believe I burned right through it, so it couldn't cover me through the whole two and a half hours I needed it to.

• Try to enjoy the course and the running itself a bit more.  This is one I can keep in mind for next time, but I really don't think I could have done it this first time.  I was so overwhelmed with the thousands of runners around me, the crazy, intense (but positive) atmosphere surrounding the whole event, and my own jangling nerves I really don't remember a lot of the details of the race itself.  Somehow over two hours of running went by incredibly quickly.  

Things I would absolutely do the same:

• Rely on my running guru the Magnificent Mindy for advice and my training plan.  I whined, she listened.  I freaked, she stayed calm.  I said, "I'm thinking about signing up for a half marathon," she said, "LET'S DO THIS.  Here's what you're gonna need."  I freaked out again, she bought me coffee.  I was one and a half miles into the actual race wondering what malevolent dissociative personality apparently lurking in some forgotten corner of my brain had signed me up for this, and there she was on the sideline, hugging me fiercely when I trotted over.  Running gurus for the win.

[I would just like for everyone to know that I wrote all of the above last night, and am now forcing myself to finish this post before I have a single cup of afternoon coffee, freshly ground and brewed and staring me right in the face over there on that kitchen counter.  I am a cruel, cruel task master.]

• The half marathon training plan detailed in the book Train Like a Mother.  This is the book and the plan within its pages Mindy prescribed for me, and while I may not have stuck to the letter of its law every single day, I definitely stuck to its spirit, using it as a general guide.  The morning of the race I woke up, my brain decided that it was Crazy Time, and I convinced the part of me that was still waking up that I was not ready.  I had trained all wrong, all wrong.  This was going to be the worst morning of my life, and I had brought it all on myself.  Having ample past experience, I managed to beat back most of the Crazies by the time I was starting the actual race, but there were still some trace doubts floating around in there- until my asthma attack.  The fact that I was able to keep running through four miles of not even really being able to breathe- then run seven more good, faster miles after?  I chalk it all up to a great training plan that had me physically and mentally ready.  Well, that and God.

• Ride down to the race with the Amazing Anne.  (If you haven't given all your friends alliterative mental nicknames, I don't know what's wrong with you.)  She's done all this racing stuff many times before, so she knew right where to park, had a loose pre-race routine in place, plus she's kind and funny and knowledgeable and fast.  Hoo.  We lined up together, knowing we weren't going to be running together, because, well, she is fast and I am slow and we are both okay with that, but man.  Seeing her take off was so fun; it's always enjoyable to see someone do something really well and with great proficiency, except for maybe this guy:

The six-fingered man:  Really good at torturing people.

• Focus on the cheering crowds and their homemade encouraging signs.  Among my favorites:  "Run fast, you will:  May the 'course' be with you."  "You're doing all this for a free banana?"  1st person:  "Go, Becky!"  2nd person:  "Go, Karen!"  3rd person:  "Go, random stranger!"  "Worst. Parade. Ever."  [Terribly unflattering candid head shot of a shaved head Britney Spears] "If Britney can survive 2008, you can survive 13.1." "I bet this seemed like a much better idea three months ago."  Yes, many of the people were there to cheer on their loved ones, but they also didn't hesitate to cheer for every other runner who passed them.  The nicest people ever may be found on the sidelines of a marathon, I'm now convinced.  

I'll probably think of a bunch more over the coming weeks, but for now:  Coffee Time!

Big Fat Race Recap Tomorrow

I survived the race.  It was fun. It was challenging.  I don't know if I'll ever do another half-marathon, but I'm happy to have completed one at least once.

The end.


Oh.  Oh, ho ho.  You didn't think I was going to leave it at that, did you?  I am physically and mentally incapable (read:  just don't want to) of writing ten words when I could write a thousand.  The other day part of my Bible study homework read, "Read Whatever 7:77.  Write one word to describe this verse," and I was like, "I had no idea you hated me, Beth Moore.  GOOD TO KNOW."

I do have a long, overly wordy and detailed recap swirling around my brain, but I also have two sick kids in my house, one of whom has been sick for nigh on three weeks now, so my time for things like blogging has been more limited than usual. (My mental mantra for the past few sickly weeks during naptime, when I usually get me-stuff done but now have a high-maintenance sick daughter constantly at my side:  "I GUESS I JUST DON'T GET TO DO ANYTHING I LIKE ANYMORE.")  I'm going to try, try, and try some more to brain-vomit it all out onto the laptop tonight and tomorrow, hoping it just, I don't know, organizes itself into sentences with real live punctuation, preferably in English.

See you tomorrow.  Good luck making sense of whatever makes its way on here.

And So It Begins

The good news:  I am one week into half marathon training and- so far as I know, at least- have not yet died.

The bad news:  I am extremely annoying to be around right now.


If you do not set precise boundaries around our conversation, it will eventually end up at the topic of running, racing, or half marathons vs 5k's vs marathons vs 10k's vs whatever.

I am like a very excitable and frantic puppy.  It's like when you're pregnant with your first baby, and you talk about every single tiny detail, both significant and insignificant, to anyone who will listen, then you learn American Sign Language because no one around you should be spared news of your magnificent, excruciatingly fascinating pregnancy.

Then you get pregnant with your second and people ask questions like, "When are you due?" and you have no idea both because you don't keep track of that kind of thing this time around and you can't quite seem to remember what the date is on any given day.

With your third pregnancy the question "When are you due?" provokes first confusion then astonishment because you are often caught off guard with the news that you are, indeed, pregnant.  I can't tell you how many times people started to talk to me about pregnancy and I thought, Man, this lady REALLY likes babies, followed closely by HOLY CRAP THAT'S RIGHT I'M PREGNANT.  I can only guess at what it's like with the fourth pregnancy on; I imagine you're making supper for your slavering horde of offspring (I don't mean to sound derogatory- this is in fact what our children resemble thirty minutes before supper), and you're stirring the marinara and telling Junior to Put the granola bar down, for heaven's sake, we're eating in 90 SECONDS, then you feel something shift in your abdomen and turn around and look at that!  There's another one!

This may or may not be why we don't have four children.

This is my first half marathon, so I am that first-pregnancy woman, both amusing and slightly irritating to veteran long-distance racers.  Thankfully I have a running guru-friend who dropped off her copy of the book Train Like a Mother (it's excellent, I'm starting my second read-through as soon as I finish this) two days after I got ahold of her and told her I'm maybe-possibly-kind of thinking about signing up for the Des Moines half marathon, then met Cade and me for coffee this morning so she could answer my 4 million questions, all while being very encouraging and not even close to patronizing, despite the fact that she's training for a 50k (that's five-zero, 50 kilometers, an over 30 MILE RACE).  I check the race website obsessively, have attacked my legs with a rolling pin (to roll out sore muscles and areas of potential injury, not beat them into submission, although that's sometimes tempting), and yakked Derek to death about the whole thing.

As a result, I'll probably be posting a bit more about running and training and such until race day (OCTOBER 19TH.  I'M NOT FREAKING OUT AT ALL ALREADY.), unless I get injured, in which case you won't hear from me at all, as I'll be curled up in a ball crying and binge-watching Doctor Who.

So:  Exhibiting higher amounts of irritating traits, even more anxious than usual, and courting injury on an almost-daily basis.  Running is obviously excellent for my health.