Monday, August 30, 2010

Delayed July 31 race report

Awwww shoot. I really need to tell all of y'all about my race that took place 3 million years ago...

Back in the day when dinosaurs roamed the earth and men lived in caves I awoke, excited and energised to run a 4 mile race on a course straight up a hill.

OK, stop the crazy train so that I can get off. Let's have a reality check.

Said race took place about 48 hours after the family had heard that bad news about my Gramma. I was in a terrible head space, as my Gramma is one of the most important and beloved people in my life. "Go run" said my wise Mom "Your Gramma would not want you being a quitter and running creates positive energy. Or something!" I concluded that these were indeed wise words, and vowing to A: not be a disappointing slacker and B: to try to send all my positive energy in the right direction off I went.
I met my Best Friends husband at the start of this mad, insane race. Not being much of a runner my BFF had informed me that he would be finishing in no less than 48 minutes, which I seriously doubted. The two of us collected our numbers, waved goodbye to the excellent coaching squad of my Dad and Huz and boarded a bus for the Other Side of The Mountain. I had never run (or seen) this course before but had been warned excessively and hysterically about the never ending hill. As we came around by mile 2 we started to go down, and down. My ears popped as we dropped below sea level in a most leisurely fashion. Looking back I concluded that these hills were not of the Mt Everest quality that I run in my normal training but were many miles long. (post July 4- 4 miler I had set a goal of 31.00 for my next 4 miler. After hearing all the talk about the difficulty of this course I backed off and set a 35:00 goal.)
There were a million people at the start (well. 600) most of whom were from various camps and would obviously be sticking together in a pack and clogging up the road like cholesterol. BOO! As the BFF-Hubs and I made an epic race plan getting by/around/ahead of those fools was top on the list.
We decided to stick together for as long as we could, with the plan to run the first 2 miles in about 16 minutes. For a non runner this is a blistering pace when set on a never ending mountain of doom but BFF hubs is in fine shape otherwise and said he'd be just fine.
We got caught in a moderate clusterfudge of chaos, churning bodies of campers and general mayhem at the start but escaped quickly. Despite the fact that the 1st mile ran a little slow we were right on target at mile 2. I knew at this point that I had plenty of high octane fuel (aka purple passion Gatorade and pretzels) in the reserves and was going to try to book it the hell out of there for the final 1/2 of the race.
To this point BFF Hubs had been doing just fine, he was puffing a bit but had kept right up like a rockstar. Just after mile 2 I looked around and the poor kid was GONE. I had a moment of thinking about waiting, looking, stopping, whatev but I'm an asshat so I shifted into high gear and set off to kick his ass.
Things went really well for the last 2 miles, I kept up a very steady pace and was able to pass a very high number of people. I was concentrating on all of those positive mindset shenanigans that my Mah had pep talked me on (and of course concentrating on not falling down, vomming, whatevs.) There was a bigass hill about .01 mile from the finish which was not my friend in any way but I finished up just fine in 30.29. Since this blew my goal finish time out of the fricking water I was quite pleased. I placed 95th- in such a big fast crazy crowd I was more than happy with this result.
Not too long after my BFF's Hubs came thru the finish- also beating his wife's expected time and coming across the line in 32.30. WHAT, WHAT!!! Good for you BFF Hubs! He looked a teeny bit green around the gills but smartened right up with some water and manly words of congratulation from the coaching squad and some of his friends. He really hadn't dropped behind me all that much at all and we all had a laugh about my robo-cop cyborg running style. Hey, chin up, chest up people!!
And the best part.... NO pictures of either of us in awkward poses the following day!!

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