0. Finish feeling strong/good, not defeated
1. < 3:00
2. Pace myself more consistently over the whole race
3. < 2:52
I think if I do #2, I can do #3, so,
@LSUlakes, please put me down for < 2:52
Well, spoiler alert, I did not hit #3.
There were very tough weather conditions. But I did manage the others so I consider it a success! I finished in 2:59:41, just squeaking in under the wire of that 3 hour mark.
Much longer version...
This week has been completely insane for me (my very small company of 3 people is scrambling to get our software product compliant with GDPR, the new EU privacy law that goes into effect at the end of this week) and the weekend was going to be even more nuts. I had originally signed up for this race last year, but had to defer it due to my back/sciatic issues. For some reason, the race was 1 week later this year than it has been previously, which put it smack dab on the second day of my agility club's dog agility yearly trial that we host (our trial weekend is a fixed date of the 3rd weekend in May). It's an outdoor trial, with 2 rings, and if you've ever seen dog agility equipment there's a lot of it and it's not all light. Some of it is big metal frames with rubberized coating and stuff.
Our club is way too small to run a 2 ring trial, especially since we only have about 10-12 people doing the bulk of the work and maybe another 10 who show up and do a little bit, but we have been putting a trial on for 30 years now, this was our anniversary one. A head honcho from the organization national office came out and stuff to honor us. It's a lot of work.
So, Friday I had to go to help set up... equipment, ring fences, tents, etc etc. I tried to take it as easy as I could for Sunday. Saturday, I was running my dog and supposed to be helping work, but I guiltily sat out of working for a lot of the classes so that I could sit under my tent and rest my legs/feet. They were already a little sore. Having gone to do parks at DL and WDW both times for days before my race, I knew I was going to regret it if I spent too much time on my feet on Saturday. I think I did a pretty good job... my legs and feet were a tiny bit sore on Sunday, but once I got my running shoes on, they felt fine (I had been wearing hiking boots most of the day Saturday).
Sunday, the forecast was for clouds and rain all morning turning to thunderstorms by about 11 am. It was an 8 am start, so we were getting warnings that the race may have to be canceled. I didn't hear anything by Saturday night though, so up I got at 4:30 am to get ready to go. I took the warning that the parking lot would fill up fast REALLY seriously and got there about 10 minutes after it opened at 6:00. It is the parking lot for a state ocean beach, so it's large, but not as large as the race. Once the parking lot filled up, you had to park on the side of the road about a half mile away and I didn't want to deal with that. I was there so early and it didn't fill up until a lot later.
I was worried about hydration due to the temps so I drank a lot of water and coffee while waiting. I have never been to a race so early before that I had to use the portapotty 3 times before the race even started. Usually I don't ever use them at all at a race! I probably could have used a 4th trip as I spent the whole race needing to pee, but I didn't want to wait in line again after doing so for the 3rd time. I considered pulling a Shalane when I hit the first ones around mile 3 on the course but my Sparkle Skirt was so drenched in sweat at that point that I knew there was no way I was wrestling it down in a non-handicapped cramped regular portapotty without dropping something down the hole or tipping it over.
I didn't put on sunscreen and almost didn't even wear my sunglasses for the race, it was that cloudy and foggy along the ocean and the forecast wasn't for nice weather. But then it all burned off by a couple miles in and I was really glad I did! I am regretting the lack of sunscreen, though! I knew right away when I got there that morning that my time goal was probably not going to happen. Most of my training the last 3 months has been in T+D under 100. Maybe a few runs the last few weeks where it was over 100 and one short run where it was 135. Yesterday, at the start of the race, T+D was 124 (62+62) and it was like swimming through the air. By the end, the sun was frying us and T+D was at 145 (77+68).
Somehow, I got put into wave 2 of 6. I'm not really too sure how that happened, because I gave them an estimated finish time of 3 hours. No one seemed to know what the rhyme or reason was for the assignments, plus they were not enforced at all. It was really informal, you could start wherever you wanted to if you really wanted, and all they did was just call all the people in the next wave to line up at the line, there were no corrals. I started out with my intervals and tried to stick to my own plan. I was quickly mostly alone after my wave started, but I knew that a lot of people would be passing me in the first mile or two as the other 4 waves started, so I just tried to stick to my own pace/plan. I did ok at it, my first mile or two I seem to go too fast no matter what all the time. They were 12:39 and 13:00 on completely flat ground, and I was supposed to be aiming for 13:06 in ideal conditions and DB had told me to slow it down some even when I had reported to him that the forecast was looking like T+D of 109 at the start and 129 or so at the end, and this was much worse. I knew some rolling hills were about to start after mile 2, as well, so I quickly changed my game plan due to that. I have slowed down my running pace quite a bit, but haven't really had success completely slowing it all the way to what it should be per my plan. It gets to the point where I'm altering my gait too much. For the race, my run/walk intervals were supposed to be 75/30. I decided to take my watch off the screen with the distance/overall time/overall pace and just put it on the screen that shows how much time left in my current run/walk interval, and I would extend my walk break about 10-15 seconds per interval (so I'd walk when it said walk, and then I'd start running again when the run countdown hit 1:05-1:00 instead of right away at 1:15). I ran almost the entire race blind like that, deciding to not stress out about it and just to run by feel, and I only occasionally checked the overall screen. I think this helped mentally... I wasn't just checking my watch all the time only to see the distance hadn't even changed a whole tenth yet.
Shuffling the intervals like that seemed to do the trick, on top of a couple of extended walk intervals when fueling/getting water and for one steep hill in particular (the only one on the course). It slowed me down a bit and I was not feeling too bad despite the heat/humidity. The hill came just at about the halfway point in the race, someone had a sign at the top that said 6.7 miles, so that was the point I decided to try and see if I could do my full intervals. I did for a while and was feeling ok, until suddenly I was not.
I had a tough stretch somewhere after mile 9 until about 10. I took a couple of extended walk breaks somewhere in there, like walked through the entire run interval twice I think, and went back to my 60/45 ones otherwise. I took stock of my body, since this was the point I had also blown up in my last half marathon. I decided my legs actually felt fairly good unlike last time... or as good as they can 9-10 miles into a half marathon. I would start out running and my legs would be ok, but I would quickly just start breathing hard and I just felt really drained from the heat and humidity. I am a heavy/salty sweater even on cool days. I had taken packets of Huma + electrolytes for my first 2 gels and had been taking water and powerade cups at the water stops before that, and I had a handheld bottle with a Nuun tablet in it, but the handheld was almost out and then I drained the rest of it at about 10 after I took my last gel figuring there had to be a water stop coming soon... I was getting pretty desperate. Thankfully the last water stop was at 11.2, and I stopped there for a while to fill my handheld at the slowest cooler spigot ever! I probably would have gotten out of there faster if I'd just grabbed a bunch of cups and dumped them in the bottle.
The last stretch of about 1.5 miles was in complete full sun along the ocean road, salt marsh and houses on one side, rocky coast and dunes blocking the ocean on the other. And a very strong headwind that felt refreshing, but was hard to run into. So much sun and pavement that stretch! I got really discouraged by that point because I checked the overall screen around there and saw it ticking around 2:40 and knew my pace had really slowed considerably after mile 9. My lap paces were all screwed up by that point because I'd accidentally hit the lap button a few times from tilting my wrist back, plus I was really stressed about my battery not lasting to the end. This is the second HM where the low battery warning has hit around mile 9, thankfully this time it at least did last until the end. It's time for me to admit that it's time to just replace this watch! So I knew I had slowed enough by that point, and it was going to be really tight to make the last 1.5 miles in < 20 min. I tried my best for a while to do my whole run interval but my breathing was starting to get out of control and wheezy in the sun/heat and the uphills that in reality are not that bad, but felt like mountains at that point. Then I realized, duh, just do 30/30 like your long runs, you know you can run faster for only 30s. I switched to 30/30 for probably the last mile, crested the last hill near the finish line, glanced at my watch and saw it at 2:48:15, and was like holy crap you need to book it down there NOW if you want to get under 3!
I felt much better about this race than my recent efforts. I did feel better/stronger and not defeated, even though it was tough weather. I think I could have made my other time goal if not for that. There were a lot of DNF and some ambulances, so I feel pretty good just about finishing! Looking at my paces, I did keep them more even, although there was a big drop off at that point after mile 9. Looking at Strava, I can see I was ranging between 13:14-13:43 for 3-9 after my faster 2 at the start, then that's when I screwed up the laps with the button a few times, but after that they were also consistent with each other... just about 45-60s slower.
I did feel better overall after the race was done, too. I was really dreading it because I was going directly from the race back to the agility trial where I had to work all the rest of the day until about 3-3:30 pm, then help load all the equipment back into the trailers and pack up the site, getting out of there about 5:30. Long day! Usually after long runs and races, my hips and legs are pretty locked up and I have trouble just getting in and out of my car, but while I was sore, I was able to get in and out ok and worked the rest of the day ok, and I feel not too bad today!
