Race Report! 16 miles in Derry, NH

Major delayed reaction on this race report from last Sunday.
I'm sad, I CAN NOT find my camera and a race report minus pics of me looking smokin' hot is like a fricking day without sunshine. Or oxygen.

I was nervous before this race. Like, really nervous.
I literally had to haul back and bitch slap myself into a better head space. (incorrect use of the word literally. but in my imagination it was oh-so real.)

By the time I had made the long treck to Derry I felt fine about things and was ready to run like normal people. If normal people were to run 16 miles over hill and dale that is...

It was COLD. Like, maybe 3 degrees at the start and I got that full-body seizure like shivering going on even though I headed for the start at the last possible second. Due to my late arrival at the start I was fairly well trapped up against what looked like a sea of backs and elbows (all I could see from my short vantage point...) I noticed that the road conditions were complete crap- lots of snow and slush, basically enough clear pavement to form a single file straight line on.

Y'all can imagine how the first few miles played out. Bumper to bumper traffic and no way around it. I made it thru the first mile in OVER 10:00 which filled me with horror, and fear that I would finish in 4:45:09. I managed to chill the heck out- mostly due to the fact that I feared that running like an idiot thru the slush for the first 5K would do nothing more than burn out my legs. I was spinning my tires like crazy as it was, very high output running for slow speed. SUCK-OH.

Around mile 4-ish the road opened up and cleared off. I was finally able to zone out into my happy running place and run normally for about 7 miles. I had warmed up, things felt good, I was congratulating myself for being fabulous in every way. Ahem.

I had been warned about the killer mile 11 hill and it was a bit of a monster. I had a little trouble breathing (thank you whooping cough for that chunk of scar tissue which impeded my wind on occasion. nice, really nice.) BUT I fought thru it and ran thru the HM split in 1:47 ish, not too shabby.

Sure, I could have done without those last 3 miles but it wasn't all bad! The crowd had really thinned out and for the first time all day I was able to avoid a constant flow of snot rockets, spit and other bodily fluids. Yuck. My feet hurt a little, and I was hungry. I had crammed a little bag of pretzles down my bra (handy place to carry things!) but couldn't be troubled to get them... I actually crammed quite a few things in with my boobs- pretzles, a few m&m's, cough drops, tissues- ALL this between my poor not-even A cup ta-tas! Go me! The poor girls got kinda scratched up from all that junk though so I may need to rethink this little arrangement?

Anwyay. I ran those last 3 miles like a boss because I was SO ready to be DONE. the left side of my head was all "NO problem rock star! Can't wait to do it again! Blah, blah, blahr-de-blahr..." The right side of my brain was more like "you are insane woman. and a jackass. get a normal hobby. you idiot." Conflicting emotions, per the norm.

My official time was 2:10:23. My GPS said that it was long- 16:2 miles, and that I ran it in 2:09:03 but whatever, it made no difference to me.

I did have fun (crazy old woman) It was long and hard (that's what SHE said) I could really feel the effects of the snow/slush covered road in my feel/ankles the next day but wasn't too terribly sore (thanks to my post race cwx tights frozen veg outfit, I'm sure!)

Little break now before hitting up the Half at the Hamptons in February... Phew!