Boston Prep 16 Miler.. Brought to you by Mr. Worldwide

This post had several possible titles.

-My first of several encounters with THE LAW (more on this later)

-The day that I took full advantage of the GI Bill, if you know what I mean... (more on THIS later)

-In the Malinowski household, there is ONE gingerale that is acceptable to consume.... (and if you don't agree, prepare to watch people smash wineglasses!!!) :-)

-Why... Just WHY????

 

It seems that in the end, I chose a semi normal title (more on Mr. Worldwide later)

Eric and I headed off to the Boston Prep 16 miler in Derry, NH this past Sunday with the plan to use it as a serious and legit test of our current fitness in regards to our Hyannis race goals. My goal was a 2:10, Eric's was a 2:22. We were able to sleep relatively late thanks to the wonderful hospitality of his Sister and Brother in law and we headed off semi-bright and early to Derry.

And almost immediately were pulled over for speeding. Oops. Got in the race way of thinking a bit early. Luckily, we were driving my car which was all up to date with its registration and what not. Eric was driving but managed to bat his eyes and sweet talk effectively enough to avoid a ticket so, Winning.

We arrived 90 minutes early which was perfect for our warm up plans. Oh, and it was a blazing 14 degrees with a steady wind of about 15 MPH with gusts to 30. FML. FML. Since I am practicing being positive in the face of disaster I tried to make the death on Mt Everest conditions my friends. It only kinda worked...

Gloves! Shirt! Generic race bib! YAY!

My pile of shit, Just the extras to keep this old lady warm-ish.

Wearing all the extras. Trying to look pumped. Failing..?

How I really felt, motha-f***ers!!

We got ready. We did normal things like eating all the honey graham bear things (what are those called?) and taking random blog pictures. Both of us felt a little nervous... but because we have ice cold water running thru our veins we played it off as cool. Obvs...

Poor Eric. This is not a very good picture. Blame me, I'm bad at photos.

Also, his scary face is not nearly as scary as mine.
He needs to work on that shit.

OK, onto the cold, harsh reality of the race...
 We ran a couple miles to warm up (headwind BOTH WAYS- I SWEAR!) Lined up and started right on time- and a good thing because it was NOT standing around weather. I wanted to maintain close to an 8:00 pace for the first half of the race and then see if I could bump it a little closer to 7:50's after the HILLS. I knew from past experience that the first mile is uphill and usually very congested so I was A-OK with  an 8:45 for that mile. The first couple miles felt pretty slow even though mile 2 was close to a 7:40 pace. After mile 2 the road opened up a little and I fell into a pretty kickass rhythm for quite a few miles. I managed to maintain a very consistent sub 8 pace- sometimes letting it creep toward my 1/2 pace which felt very comfortable and easily maintainable. My legs felt fantastic, and I was having happy feelings that all my hard work was paying off!

This was the first time that I have run a race without my Ipod (due to the fact that I lost mine a month ago and decided, essentially, to punish myself and not get a new one.) I have not missed it (much) during training and decided that it would be good to run quietly, really paying attention to how I was feeling, my pace, and try to isolate what to do when I got tired/grumpy. And you know what? What I learned is that I need my damn Ipod for long races. I got pretty damn bored of my own stupid head space. During this time I was thinking positive thoughts (Seriously Coach Kelsey, I WAS) and singing songs in my head. Except I SUCK at singing songs in my head apparently because I'd JUST get going with some rando Pitbull song (cue up the: I'm MISTER WORLDWIDE, I'M MISTER WORLDWIDE!!!) and I'd get sidetracked. Only to have the damn song restart moments later with (you guessed it) I'm MISTER EFFING WORLDWIDE! So yeah. First purchase on Monday was a spiffy new Ipod. This also should explain the title of my post!
As expected, at mile 10-something the HILL of death showed up. As anyone who has ever run in Derry knows, the hill of DEATH is the Granddaddy of all those other hills on the course (of which there are so very, very many.) I run on hills all the time at home- I'm a very confident hill runner. BUT. This hill is in a league of his own. It kicked my ass this year, end of story. (except, sadly, it is not quite the end of the story yet.) At the top of the hill I seriously was going to hurl, desperately not wanting a repeat of puking in somebodies yard like I did while running Around The Lake I talked myself out of it and tried to put my game face back on. The last 3 miles felt anything but good as I attempted to ignore the havoc in my poor belly and just get the eff to the finish. The other horrible, horrible thing about the last couple miles was the WIND- it was whipping in my face at about 487 MPH and ruining my day. BOOO!!!
When I finally crossed the finish line I could have cared less that I PR'd (2:08:55) and I pretty much just sprinted straight for the porta potty, oh God... I decided to quit running forever. I hated everything. AND I was supposed to run 2 cool down miles! I ran (so. so. slowly) back to see where Eric was and found him very quickly (thank heavens- I literally could NOT run) When asked how he was he replied "UGH" which I understood. I walked back to the finish (the PAIN) and straight BACK to the porta potty. Lovely.... Found Eric who, as it turned out, had run a perfect race and crossed the finish line in 2:22:15. He is remarkably good at running an exact pace, something that I am a bit jealous of. I am also jealous that he can run an awesome race and not have to spend the rest of the day hunkered down in the bathroom weeping for his Mom (not that I do THAT, duh...)  We tried to eat food. I ran back to the bathroom... We decided to leave, and yeah, I ran to the bathroom. I felt a little better and thought that the worst was over until we were 2 seconds from Eric's sisters house and I started dry heaving like a BOSS. "Run inside to the bathroom" cried poor Eric. "NO WAY" I heaved "I'm not gonna puke on YOUR SISTER!!"Concerned that I was going to blow legit chunks he asked if I wanted to get out of the car "NO!!!!" I said "It is rude to puke in someones driveway!!!" I finally managed to yak up the Advil that I had taken and then I felt much better. It was a very pretty, sexy and feminine moment which reminded Eric what a lucky man he is. *sigh*

Anyway. Mega horrible GI issues aside my final thoughts were that it was a solid preview of how Hyannis should go. (minus the dry heaves of doom perhaps?) I don't feel that Derry is a particularly good race for building confidence, I seem to question my logic and reason post race on a yearly basis. However, I am very confident in my training plan and that is the most important thing.
I have a 20 miler scheduled for this coming weekend and am going to continue to experiment with various snacks to attempt to cut down on the drama of my dumbass belly. Not much time to figure it out at this point but I'm going to do what I can!

(and on a side note. I might not have given up running but I promise that I will NEVER, EVER run that race even ONE second faster. EVER.)