The Trail of Snot. That is how I will remember this race. I felt fine, but that cold/virus/whatever my children gave me two weeks ago is still clearing itself out and I left quite a few snot rockets in my wake…including, possibly, on other runners trying to pass me. That’ll teach them.
But anyway.
The first two+ miles of this race were not good. It was slow. Felt awful. Gave up all hope of breaking 2 hours, maybe even finishing. Why bother. This was terrible.
I should know this by now, but I need a little bit of time to warm up.
Mile 3 things started to kick into gear. I felt like I was working harder than I should be given the fact I had another 10 miles to go and that, by all other indicators, this would not end well.
But by Mile 4 I figured that since it was already happening, I’d just keep going that hard as long as I could. #strategy
At Mile 5 I started walking through the aid stations because I got tired of soaking myself and having most of the water go up my nose.
Mile 6 a guy with super buff arms befriended me. We ran together for about half a mile until I LEFT HIM IN THE DUST.
The turnaround point was a highlight, because the marathon runners ran straight and we got to head back, so I took a moment to appreciate the fact that I dodged that bullet.
The second half we were running into a headwind. But I managed to maintain my speed and was still in control and killing it. This race was going to be a cakewalk. Why don’t I always use this strategy?
mile 7
Mile 10 I hit wall #1. Mile 11.5 came wall 2.
Right around Mile 11, based on my watch (which was a little bit off the official time), I realized that I could *probably* break 1:45 if I hung on. And once I realized that I had to do it. Had to.
That’s when things got ugly. My body was like, “Sorry, you did not adequately prepare me for this, stop right now.” And I was like, “NO, BODY! I’M THE BOSS HERE!” and my body was like, “F*** you,” and my entire body, arms included, started to burn then go numb. I tried to stay calm and not puke.
Mile 12 Buff Arms passed me. And there was nothing I could do about it.
When I crossed the finish line my heart rate was 195. Based on the Mayo Clinic’s method of calculating, my max heart rate should be 185. I almost exploded. Finish line pictures will be keepers.
I crossed the finish in 1:45:03. God. Dammit.
I wore my Garmin, which spit out a bunch of info that I probably didn’t need to know but is fun (for me) to look at.
Total elevation 52 feet. Shwing.
Discrepancies in distance due to starting my watch a little late, and having it pause itself when I slowed down too much at the aid stations (a setting I have it on for when I do city running because it’s awesome at lights).
For posterity’s sake, and since I have them so neatly packaged right in front of me, my splits:
Wrapped it up with these puppies:
Why is running so fun.
The poor friend who I convinced to sign up for the full marathon did indeed finish, but did so while deathly ill. CHELSEA, YOU ARE CRAZY but also a rockstar. Feel better soon, girl.
Now I’m off to eat 1300 calories and completely negate this entire experience.
Rambulatory Ambulatory 