Race for the Pinks 5k

I signed up for this 5k mostly because it was a few blocks from my house. Can't beat the transportation! The 5k was starting at 8:00 and the fun run at 9:00. I drove to the race (which felt really, really lazy) because Harry wanted to do the fun run and I was a little worried about getting him there in time.

Anyway, I put on my running skirt I bought for last year's Princess Half. I'm really not the running skirt type, but I thought it would be appropriate to look girly for the Race for the Pinks. Unfortunately, I'd never worn it before and it was both short and big. The little bit of coverage provided felt like it might slip down- that was distracting!

I talked to my friend Michelle before the race who just wanted to finish. I wanted to have a new time to plug into the race calculators so I lined up behind the always present half-naked, trash-talking high school boys. My friends Cheryl and Mary were next to me. They were doing this race the weekend before the Marine Corps Marathon in DC. Hard core. Cheryl tapped me on the arm and asked how old I was. I told her I'm 39. Her response was something like "oh, I thought you were older!" And now I know I'm a runner, because instead of thinking that I can't get to Botox soon enough, I recognized that she just wanted to know if she had to worry about me in the Master's division. Cracked me up.

The race started. First couple of blocks is downhill. Cheryl and Mary are in front of me. I find this unacceptable since I'm sure they're holding back a bit for their full next weekend. So I trot on past them. And found myself next to Allison. She's a triathlete type and she's running insanely fast. I keep up with her the first mile and a half- we're pushing 7:20s. The course is hitting all the hills. Using Cheryl's logic, it suddenly hit me that Allison is younger than me. Bye Bye.

The rest of the race was uneventful. I finished in something like 23:5x. I was hoping to be faster, but I was in the same order with the locals so I guess the hills took a toll on everyone (except Allison- note to self: don't try to keep up next time!)

Time to go get Harry. Pity I can't get out of the parking lot without going across the race course. Hmmmm.... I grabbed Harry's bib and just started trotting back to my house. I loaded Harry up in the stroller, knowing that he wouldn't want to go one step farther than a mile. I'm sure we were quite the sight- I'm hot, sweaty, wheezing, limping, pushing the ginormous Harry. (At least my skirt stopped threatening to fall off once I got hot). The race monitors laughed at me. Harry and I made it to the parking lot and put the stroller in the car.



We lined up. I was bragging about how Harry maintains a nice steady pace. Yeah, he immediately took off... and in half a block was walking. I remember him trying to walk on a curb and falling (good to get the prerequisite race fall out of the way early). He'd run, he'd kick pinecones, he'd walk, he'd wave at other people, he'd break into a limp and start rubbing his leg- very busy mile! It was definitely fun, but it took a long time to finish (I think 14:xx minutes). Harry did sprint in the last block or so. To his utter dismay, they'd run out of medals. I knew I'd won my age group, so I told him to stick around and that I'd give him mine. Unfortunately, I forgot that instead of medals, I'd be getting a little towel. Harry was less than impressed. Such is life in the back of the pack.



The teenage age boys were from a cross country team in Douglas- they finished 1st through 5th. Cheryl won the Master's division, but she was behind me. So did I really beat her or did she just play it safe and ignore me since I wasn't in her division?? My vet was at the finish line holding a random puppy. Turns out he'd seen it at his office the day before- it was chasing people on the course so he grabbed it and was going to walk it home. Small town!

I did decide I might have a new policy regarding 5ks. I couldn't run this 5k with my newbie friend because I needed enough time to pick up Harry, but I think in the future I may try to help pace some of my friends. I had an okay race time, but I was really crippled for a full week afterwards. I had to skip a lot of training including two weekend long runs- not smart. I'm not really sure why I can't seem to get rid of lingering injuries (apparently if you have some sort of PF in your left foot, you can overcompensate with your right and then end up with both legs crippled...) but stupid me shouldn't have been so competitive.

Worldwide Festival of Races

This is a hard one to describe without totally admitting what a dork I am.

When I first started running way back in 2006, there was this newfangled invention- an iPod. And on that shockingly little Walkman, you could put something called a podcast. I don't know how it happened, but at some point I started listening to this guy, Steve Runner, who does a show called Phedippidations. Half the time I didn't understand what he was talking about, but I liked listening to him telling running stories and sharing information. And, let's face it, it was free and you can only take so much of the Black Eyed Peas on the treadmill.

One day, my new running friend, Steve, announced he was going to start a virtual race called the Worldwide Festival of Races. The timing of the race fell into my Goofy training. All I had to do was sign up online and print out a bib they generated, run a half marathon over a certain weekend, and post my results. I signed up and that Saturday, I went outside and I ran and ran and ran... and walked some... and ran some... it was my longest run ever. When I finished, I hopped in the bathtub fully dressed like the other hard core runners and took an ice bath. Alright, I'm not that hardcore- I took a luke cold bath, but still. I remember calling my mom and saying "I just ran a half-marathon!" So there it was- my first half marathon finish. I was very pleased with myself, but officially terrified of the Goofy.

Fast forward: I ran the Goofy, and had a baby, and signed up for the 10k the next year. I vaguely remember finishing that one. I think I might have done one other, but it really is a blur.

Fast forward again: When Steve started talking about the Worldwide Festival of Races this year, I was a little perturbed because it fell the weekend AFTER my half-marathon in Jacksonville. Technically I could have counted the Jax half as my virtual half, since I'm the one who reports my results, but it didn't feel authentic. And then I realized Ted was going out of town the weekend of the virtual half- ah, not meant to be.

But wait! Friday night was Parents' Night Out! And now Ted would be out of town and the kids had somewhere to be for a three hour block of time- and the Worldwide Festival was back on! I signed up again...

I scrambled around Friday getting the kids ready for Parents' Night Out (crazy hair night requires significant prep time). After dropping them off, I headed to the Y for a treadmill because I didn't want to run in the dark.

I hopped on the treadmill. Before pushing the start button, I stood there a minute and debated whether or not to pull my scrunched down compression socks up to my knees. Finally I decided that it wouldn't really add that much to the weird runner vibe I was already giving off- bright pink shoes, two water bottles, gels, visor, iPhone... so I yanked the compression socks up and pushed start.

Mile 1: yeah, not feeling it. Surely it will get better.
Mile 2: hey, this still sucks.
Mile 3: I'm cool with the old guy changing the channel, but seriously, the Weather Channel??
Mile 4: oh crap. I forgot to eat dinner.
Mile 5: oh look, I can have a gel for dinner. Yum.
Mile 6: shouldn't this be sucking less by now?
Mile 7: I'm all alone in the gym... kind of creepy.
Mile 8: I am so getting a biscuit at KFC when this is over!
Mile 9: stupid virtual race! have to start the treadmill over cause I'm almost out of time...
Mile 10: soul crushing to see the miles start over.
Mile 11: maybe I should slow down?? (but then this horror will never end!)
Mile 12: I'm so hungry...
Mile 13: that's it! I am NOT doing the last .1 miles!
0.1 mile: oh fine!!- I'll finish this stinking race!

And that's it. 13.1 miles at 9:50/mile. I took a quick shower, changed, and headed straight to KFC for my biscuit (or two). For once the kids were all organized and by the door so picking them up wasn't the usual challenge.

And that's my virtual race report on my virtual race!

Jacksonville Marine Corps Half 2010

Background:

I signed up for this race primarily as a means to keep myself training during the summer. If I don't have a race looming over me, I will stop running. It's that simple.

Week before the race: shoe catastrophy.

Long story, but basically I had one pair of pink Newton shoes that were a little snug and I had a pair of yellow Newtons with 500+ miles (yes, I finished out the 500 miles). I had a pair of Sauconys that seemed fast but were completely untested. I also had a pair floating in the mail (thank you, Road Runner Sports, for sending me the men's version of my favorite yellow shoes and then taking forever to correct it- oh, except wait, it wasn't corrected- I got a duplicate pair of the tight pink shoes that I now need to send back... and there was the long story. D'Oh).

All of that was just a set up to explain why I ran two miles in the week before the race. Yep, TWO. My PF was flaring up and all of my shoes freaked me out in their own special ways. I took the extra time to print out pace charts. As the week grew longer, I started tossing those charts- 1:46? Ha! 1:47? Not likely. Finally, I decided I'd just wing it with my Garmin- if I could hit steady 8:30ish miles, I'd be happy.

Day of the race:

I was on the road by 4:00 a.m. I think it's actually easier to drive at that hour than try to pack all of my running stuff and all of the kids' stuff and get ready in a hotel... Of course, after you've run Disney, hitting the road in pitch black darkness still feels like sleeping in!

Yeah, forgot two important things: there's no traffic on the back roads in South Georgia at 4:00 a.m. and the Marines were in charge of the race. I was parked and ready at 5:30 a.m. and packet pickup took about 30 seconds. Oh well- gave me time to stress out over the three pairs of shoes I dragged along! Did I mention the race started at 7:00 a.m.? I watched them make some last minute adjustments to the balloons at the start line- not everyone can say that!

I perused some sort of Florida running magazine, decided on my old tested yellow Newtons, popped a gel and 2 endurolytes, and just people-watched from my car. Finally I made my way to the port-a-potty lines. While in the line, I chatted with a father and daughter running together (he'd done 3 Goofys, this was her first half). He warned me about the "corkscrew"- I wasn't really clear on what it was, but it involved a bridge and a horrible descent around mile 11... Oh good.

We lined up. There were no corrals or even signs. That didn't make me very happy. The Marines band played the National Anthem- really good.

And the start:

Ugh. Too crowded. Lots of weaving. I'm good with walkers even with their Camelbacks- what do I know, they may be testing their equipment for an Ultra- but must they get right in front of me??

Mile 1- 8:49

And there's the first bridge. It wasn't too bad...

Mile 2- 8:17
Mile 3- 8:51

Somewhere in here was the second bridge. It was really bad.

Mile 4- 8:18

I was delusional. I actually thought I could recover from the bridges and get back to an 8:07 pace.

Mile 5- 8:30

Lucky break: found an older hard-core looking guy in a bright green shirt. Decided he would be my pacer.

Mile 6- 8:25

Kept following the old guy. I liked the auto-pilot. Somewhere around here I actually noticed some of the cool stuff we were passing- trendy restaurant/shopping area, neighborhoods...

Mile 7- 8:33

I was feeling pretty good, although every now and then just out of nowhere I'd get hit by a massive urge to start walking. I usually gave myself a mental slap and changed my music...

Mile 8- 9:04

Dude, the old guy was so slick- I didn't even know he had a gel until I saw him toss it. I got mine out of my pocket (not easy carrying my iPhone and water bottle too). It wouldn't tear. Damn. I stopped running and finally tore it- I ate maybe half. In all my fumbling, I lost my old guy pacer.

Mile 9- 8:23

I could see the bright green shirt on the horizon, but I couldn't catch the old guy. I threw out my water bottle.

Mile 10- 8:51

I was still sad about losing my pacer, but I distracted myself wondering just exactly what the "corkscrew" was and how close we were...

Mile 11- 8:47

We were on sidewalks along the river now. It was nice because of the view, but it was kind of tight and my 500 mile Newtons weren't so cushy on the concrete.

Mile 12- 9:31

And around here, I learned what the "corkscrew" was. First, there was a pedestrian bridge- you went up about three squares of sidewalk, then leveled out about two, then repeated. And again... I made it to the top without walking, but then had a weird sort of out of body, knees buckling sensation. It was disturbing, but I was pretty sure no one around me was in good enough shape to rescue me, so I pressed on... to the corkscrew. It was a square ramp thing that just went down and down and down... I guess it was designed to avoid stairs, which I would have appreciated had I been pushing a stroller, but the sharp turns were really painful. I finally made it down. The one part of the corkscrew that I did like?? I saw a little bright green shirt way down below me. It was my old guy pacer! I couldn't catch him, but he hadn't gained a bunch of time on me since my unfortunate gel incident...

Mile 13- 8:57

We were in the Jacksonville Landing area now- lots of random people staring at us. I was desperately looking for the stadium... People who still had a little kick started passing me. Bastards.

Oh look, a photographer. At mile 13. After three bridges. Lovely.

.1- 1:02

And the finish. 1:54:26.

We ran under some sort of artillery Marine tank things. Pretty cool. A Marine put my medal around my neck- it's actually a nice substantial medal. For the price, I didn't expect much. (Now that I think about it, the shirt was really nice too. This race was quite the deal for your money!)

Another Marine handed me a pint glass. It's all trendy now to grab a beer at the finish- Budweiser was a sponsor. While fun in theory, I passed on the Budweiser before 9:00 a.m. I did however score a Moe's breakfast burrito. Normally I would scorn a breakfast burrito (not because I'm so pious, but because the thought of eggs in a burrito isn't appealing). I ate this one in the car (that I found after the traditional wrong turn in the parking lot). Best part of the race.

Ah, burrito...

Donned the sweet compression socks, pulled over to change my wet shirt, and made it home by 11:00 a.m. Not bad!

The best part of the race (besides the breakfast burrito?): I didn't finish and immediately freak out about how I was never running again!