With my eyes still closed I heard the sounds of the 3yr old talking in his room. I briefly cursed my mommy hearing & then rolled over to see what time it was. I was semi-happy to see that it was 5:30AM. Then I immediately woke up enough to turn on my phone and check the weather one.more.time. Thanks to my OCD weather checking for the past week I knew it was going to be a warm one for the half today, but it was even warmer than I expected. My weather app said it was 63 degrees. 63! It's November in Kansas at 5:30am. Oh Boy!
After convincing the 3 yr old to at least stay in his room (a miracle I tell you!), I grabbed my clothes and hustled to get dressed. Due to the weather I had revamped my race day outfit yesterday, and laid it out last night. I had opted for my CWX stablyx capris & my "badass mother runner" short sleeve shirt from www.anothermotherrunner.com. Both had been tested on several occasions & on long runs. I wanted no surprises on this venture. I ate a bagel, checked facebook, & grabbed a jacket (just in case) while waiting for my BRF Kris to show up and car pool with me to the race. Once Kris showed up we were off! Oh wait...coffee. We needed coffee...so we stopped. Then we were off.
It was a short 20 minute drive to the parking lot we had to park in. Due to a shortness of parking they had us park about a mile away and ride a trolley into the race start which was at Theater in the Park in Shawnee, KS. That was kind of fun. Due to the high winds it was chilly in the parking lots and waiting for the start, so we kept our jackets on (thank goodness I packed it!). We had 30 or so minutes before the start so we hit the porta potties, packed our jackets in our drop bag, & then headed out for a short warm up run & stretch on part of the paved path opposite the start line. The sun was up and was coming out from behind some clouds and we got our first look at how beautiful it was going to be today. We ran a bit, talked a lot and then found the entrance to a short trail. Oh how I wanted to go run that little trail. It was beautiful, but it was time to run back to the start line and get this long run going.
Me cheesing at the starting line.
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After some chatting and standing around we were off. The first part of the course was downhill which was kinda awesome, except when we realized we'd have to climb back up....oh well we decided to worry about that later. We also managed to head out way too fast and did the first 4 miles at 5k pace...woops. My cold/cough from earlier this week surfaced again after mile4 and every time I started hacking it was a little bit worse, but nothing to do but get it done.
Pilgrim Pacer course profile:
We ran past some picnic structures and on the path by the lake which was beautiful. We passed an aid station and didn't really need anything so we headed on, but by the first porta potty Kris needed to stop. There was a long wait line so we skipped it and headed on to the second one. At about mile 3.5 it started raining, but there weren't many clouds in the sky and honestly it felt wonderful. Then strangely the rain stopped. At the potty stop about 4 miles in we met a really nice guy who is in the army & stationed in Oklahoma. He was running the half with his wife. They left, Kris pottied, and we headed back out. I had paused my Garmin when we stopped and when I went to turn it back on it kept bleeping that it had a GPS error. I had no idea what that meant, so I reset the garmin and started the run over. No biggie.
After the potty stop we actually managed to slow down a bit which was good and bad. I knew if we didn't the last few miles were going to hurt, but at this point the trail was in the sun and the sun and I don't really get along when I'm running. I tend to just melt and have to walk. Thankfully it we were coming up to a spectator point at a playground. For some reason it looked really familiar. It took me a few minutes to place it, but when I did I got the biggest smile on my face. The playground was one of the aid stations for the Breast Cancer 3day I did back in 2006. For lack of a better way of saying it was like seeing an old friend. I ran on those memories for a little bit and then came back down to earth. The slog from the last aid station up a few more hills to the turnaround were...difficult.
Kris & I just after the Halfway point:
Slow, slow, slow was the story for the remainder of the run. We decided to walk up the hills, run down the hills, run as much of the flats as possible. Our pace had severely slowed, but it was all about finishing at this point. Kris was hurting and I was tired. The wind, sun & warmer than what we'd trained in weather had beat us up (seriously, I'm wind burnt from the strong winds and gusts) We just had to gut it out.
The last mile was all uphill and we didn't have the legs/lungs/guts/heart to run it. We finally made it back up to the theater in the park and ran the last little bit to cross the finish line smiling. I did it! We did it! I'm a half marathoner!
Official time 3:09:17.
Kris & I after some water and pumpkin pie.
Next....hill training.
It was an amazing run. More training on hills next time!
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