Half Marathon Recap – Part 2: Race Day!

I did it!!

The OC Half Marathon was amazing!!

The morning started with my Fit Mamas and I meeting up at 4:15 in order to carpool to the finish line of the race.

Once we got there, we had to take a shuttle bus to the start.

We thought since we were getting there an hour and 20 minutes early, we had plenty of time…

boy, were we wrong!

The shuttle line was sooo long and it was was so crowded that we didn’t get to the start until about 5:40…just enough time to use the porta potty (another 20 minute line) and run to our assigned corral.

Only to wait some more.

haha…it was sort of the theme of the morning!

We had a staggered start so it actually took us 11 minutes to cross the official starting line.

We spent the extra time stretching and taking a few pre-race pics:

Can you tell I was excited?I had this big dumb grin on my face the whole day!! haha

The entire race took me 2 hours, 17 minutes, and 40 seconds…

more than 2 minutes under my stretch goal of 2 hours and 20 minutes!

I was beyond excited with my time…and was seriously glowing the whole day!

My race was broken down like this:

The first mile was super slow due to the crowd, but I was ok with it because I was still testing out my calf muscle and didn’t want to push it.

I felt great running, but I had no idea until I checked my times after the race how great our pace was!

For miles 2-5, we had a super fast pace compared to what we normally run…all well below 10 minute miles!!

We stopped for water at mile 8 (hence the 11 minute pace) and at mile 9, we found my husband and daughter waiting for us to cheer us on! It was at the same time we decided to stop and stretch so we were stopped for around 2 full minutes (which explains our 12 minute mile pace). I was happy to see him, but I hate stopping during a race so I was definitely antsy for them to finish stretching so we could keep moving.

Mile 11, we also stopped and got some water and I ate a piece of my power bar and a couple of my sports beans.

By this time, I was feeling fantastic.

My calf was bothering me less and less as the miles went on…and I knew I was in the home stretch so I really started to push myself.

I had a pretty decent pace for mile 12, but my fastest mile by far was the last one, mile 13…which I ran in under 9 minutes!!

I felt like I was flying!

I expected to be dragging by that point, but I think because I was sort of babying my calf muscle for the first half of the race, I didn’t go as fast as I probably could have. I know I definitely felt like I had plenty of gas left in the tank if I was able to run that hard at the end!

The feeling of crossing the finish line was incredible

and I surprised myself by immediately thinking,

I can’t wait to do this again!

A shot of us with our babes after the race:

I was so excited to get kisses from my little girl and see my amazing hubs after reaching such a huge goal…

The OC Marathon gives out a really nice medal and you better believe I wore it proudly the whole morning!

We walked around the fairgrounds to check out the scene

and then finally had to head home because my little princess was missing her morning nap.

She was such a trooper though…and hung out the whole morning with Joe without any problems at all. I was super impressed that she did so well and so happy that they were both able to share in my day.

It meant so much to have them there, cheering me on.

Conclusion: Not only am I totally psyched that I signed up and actually ran a half marathon, I cannot wait to do it again! I had so much fun during the entire race and was smiling and waving at the fans throughout the course. I was seriously, no joke, a little bummed when it was over because I really had enjoyed it that much!

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My thoughts on my preparations for the race:
1) I feel like I did a good job with carbo loading for the run. I allowed myself to eat healthy carbs all day when I felt hungry. I started with my new favorite oatmeal pb&j creation in the morning (more on that goodness in a future post).

I ate my pasta “dinner” fairly early in the day (about 2pm) so I wouldn’t feel like I had a load in my stomach the next morning.

I didn’t want an empty stomach either, so I made sure to have a healthy snack in the evening.

All in all, I would repeat this for the next run I do. It worked perfectly for me today.

2) I drank a ton of water throughout the whole day on Saturday and no other drinks…no soda, no crystal light. I kept it simple in order to have the best hydration possible.

3) I stretched and foam rolled constantly throughout Saturday as well. This totally helped…I’m positive of it.

4) I spent time making an exciting new playlist for my run that totally made a difference as I was running and kept me in a great mood.

5) All of my intense strength training (in addition to running 3x a week) was the key piece to my training in my opinion. The countless squats, lunges, pushups, plyometrics, etc. that we did to prepare made me feel super strong as I was running. I had hardly any fatigue and I completely attribute that to how much my muscles have been worked over the last 2 months. When I used to run in the past, I felt dead tired during and afterwards and I know it was because back then I trained with only a running schedule and no muscle conditioning.

It is still hard for me to believe sometimes that I am a runner. But after yesterday, I want to keep this up forever.

I expected to be proud of myself for the accomplishment, but in all honesty, the real reason I want to run another half marathon (and other races!) is simply because it was

so much fun!

Words I never thought I would say.

It’s Official!

I had to take a screen shot to show proof because I have a hard time believing it myself!

I have officially signed up for the OC half-marathon!

The race is in just 33 days on May 1st, 2011.

It will be 4 days shy of my 32nd birthday.

I’m a little nervous…

(or a lot).

But there is also a big part of me that is confident that I can do it.

 

My run yesterday was amazing.

Hardest run I’ve ever done in my life.

But amazing.

I finally got up the guts to join the rest of my workout team instead of just running on my own.

The goal was 8 and 1/2 miles.

Now, I’ve run 7 miles and actually have felt good doing it, so I knew 8 1/2 was possible.

However, my runs are usually fairly flat. Well, I take that back. After my run yesterday, I can say that my runs are TOTALLY flat! haha

These hills were CRAZY!

The first 5 miles I felt great except I had to pee ridiculously badly! So badly in fact, that at mile 4, I actually stopped and went in a random porta-potty on the side of a local park – GROSS!!

Those first 5 miles there was a combination of big hills and big downhills, so it wasn’t all cake and I was still able to stay at the head of the pack.

The last 4.8 miles were tough. The last 3 miles were all uphill with no break. Some long and gradual uphills…and lots of steep uphills., but no flat parts…no downhill.

Just constantly

up

up

and more up.

 

But I did it.

Oh ya…did I mention that it was in the rain?

The last 2 miles, I was dying. I was moving at a snails pace. Walkers probably could have passed me. But I was running.

I can always tell when I’ve hit my “longest run peak”, as I call it.

Last week, I had run 7 and yesterday I could tell when I hit that distance because my body started dragging.

I knew I would finish and I wouldn’t quit, but I was hurting.

I couldn’t believe when we finally got to the park at the top of the hill and we were done!

I can’t say that I felt amazing. Not right away anyway!

I felt tired.

I felt soaking wet.

I felt chilled to the bone.

And I did feel proud.

I definitely was not giddy like after my last run, even though I had accomplished a huge goal.

I was too tired for giddy…haha.

I also asked my husband to go with me yesterday afternoon to drive the actual half marathon course so I could see what I was up against.

After doing that, I knew for sure I was signing up!

It seemed so much easier than the run I had just done!!

It is a mostly flat course with big portions of it looking out at the Pacific Ocean with the most breathtaking views. I would have taken pictures as we went, but I had a baby in the backseat who was getting rather impatient so we were trying to keep things moving pretty quickly. The parts without the ocean views are through really nice neighborhoods or on running trails…all in all a very nice course.

I was actually really excited last night when we got home.

I am going to run 13.1 miles!!

When I was in Runners World buying my sneakers last weekend, there were these stickers at the checkout:

I joked about getting one (at that point, I was almost positive that I was NOT going to run it.)

Now just 9 days later, it is a borderline reality.

In 33 days, I will run a half marathon.

And you bet your ass I’m going back to that store to get that sticker when I do!