Maine Half Marathon: The official slow race report!

After my epic beer race report of yesterday I thought it would be prudent and adult of me to type up something a bit more legit for today. Don't ask me why, as my post yesterday pretty much summed it up!

Let's backtrack for some second.
- I did not train for this shiz AT ALL. My last run over 7-8 miles was in APRIL. I did NOT follow a training plan, I did NOT PLAN at all!
-This meant that I did not have time to suffer any over training injuries (well, duh. I have been on a "taper" since May!)


Let's now take a look at Sunday morning.
I woke up with a fresh shiny new cold. REALLY??? Really. Oh well.
The weather was amazingly bad and it is hard to amaze me with bad weather. OH WELL.

Off I went in the dark, rain and cold. I was feeling pretty good about things because why the hell not? Nothing says "here I come" like an old, untrained sick person, right?

I snuck to the start in the nick of time (parking took a bit) but what luck... It was pouring buckets so I managed to stay fairly dry until the gun went off. Being that I got there last I was way back in the pack at the start- I think it took over 3 minutes to actually cross the start line!
(good think I put my number on sideways so that it could be read properly. Other MM participants will know what I mean.)

Before mile 1 arrived my feet were already more wet than they have ever been before. As the race progresses I was seeing some horrific blisters on other runners- I have never been so happy to have good socks!

It rained so damn hard! I had on a "waterproof" windbreaker and I ran with the hood pulled up over my head the whole time. It didn't do a bit of good as I was still completely and totally drenched at the end. It was also freezing cold and around mile 4 I began to have serious doubts about the wisdom of walking at all. I was quite nervous that I would get so chilled that I would not be able to get warm again...

I ran at SUCH an easy pace that running the whole thing began to seem like a viable option at the 1/2 turnaround point. I took a moment to evaluate and honestly declared that I felt quite well. VERY wet, but good. At this point I had had to pause once to re-tie my soggy shoes and I had walked thru one water station (thanks to the amazing volunteers who stood around for hours in the awful weather!)

Remembering back to my last half I knew that the second half might sneak up and get me. I still have vivid and unpleasant memories of having to talk myself into taking every step of the final 5 miles last time... I did not enjoy that. As it turned out this time I had plenty of gas left in the tank- remarkable considering my lack of long runs. During the second half I ran each mile faster than the previous one, passing people along the way.

I knew that making it in under 2:10 was going to be almost impossible given my 10K split but I ran along in a comfortable pace, checking out the scenery, laughing at the beer drinking boys at mile 11 who (from their porch) screamed "whooooo-hooooo" whenever a group of ladies ran by, and in general really enjoying my run.

As much as I enjoyed the whole epic 13.1 I was still glad to see the finish and VERY pleased to run under the clock in 2:06:50 (final net time was 2:04:09) As you all know this is MUCH slower than my PR but MUCH better than I had ever hoped for!

I had a lot to think about on my drive home.
-Clearly I made the right choice to run within my "comfort zone" as the odds of an injury with my lack of training were higher than I would have liked.
-I enjoyed this run tremendously, head cold and weather and all...

And this makes me wonder, should I just be cool with running slower than I feel I should in the name of "enjoying" it? Usually I would scream a resounding "NO" as I feel mediocrity in the name of comfort is one of the seven deadly sins!

But let's face it people: I am no elite runner nor will I ever be. Why push myself to the point of vomiting and burnout? Perhaps I can find a balance- I would prefer to be finishing in under 2 hours (seems do-able) but perhaps kick aside the goal of consistent 1:45 finishes? (insert some serious doubt *here*)

This was a whole new 13.1 experience for me and one that I honestly thought was terrific. I enjoyed listening to the conversations around me, I liked the fact that I had given myself permission to stop whenever I needed to, and I liked the fact that there was no high pressure and challenging to obtain goal hanging over my head (I have enough of that in the equine show arena, thanks!)

Anyway. I finished, got a tinfoil blanket, ate several bagels, drank a Gatorade and two chocolate milks, went home, ate half a bag of caramel creams and a slice of salmon, goat cheese and asparagus pizza, took a pile of cold meds and sat down.

THE END.