I’ve got some humble pie left over if you want some

Posted by hellyontherun in Half Marathon, Race, Running and tagged with Character Building, Half Marathon, Humble Pie, Marathon Training, Running November 24, 2014

Part of my recap for my training this past week includes a half marathon race.

I’ll start there.

The Gilbert 1/2 was an anticipated race because it’s local–like less than two miles away from where I live. This being the case, the route was along roads and canals that I frequent making the course advantageous to me in some ways.

Yeah, uh huh.

I woke up and got ready, dressed in shorts and my run club shirt. I packed an extra set of clothes in case I wimped out being so exposed. (Yep, I later redressed in my car.)

I met up with my run club amigos near the start and we talked about how silly we were for being so cold–considering those in the east coast were suffering through record breaking snow.

I chit chatted with Harry (who ran a 1:34!) and he pep-talked me into running the race hard. I had been going back and forth between treating the race more like a training run–considering I’d run a marathon 4 weeks earlier) or taking advantage of the familiarity of the course and attempting another sub 2 hour–maybe even PRing.

I decided on the latter.

The first four miles were great. I was feeling pretty good and well under the pace I needed to sub 2. I made a mental challenge to try and continue to keep my splits under 9 minutes. The next 3 miles were pretty darn close but still successful.

Then I started feeling twinges of pain in my groin around mile 8 and felt myself slow down considerably. I felt that I was still on pace to get a sub 2 though and didn’t let my spirits falter despite registering the next 2 miles well above 9 minutes.

I don’t know what the hell happened to mile 11 and it wasn’t until after the race that I saw it had been an almost 10 minute mile!Somehow, I had missed hearing the beep of the split and failed to see how much my pace had slowed. To me, I felt like I had still been maintaining pace (funny how that happens huh?)

I attempted quick math in my head to see what I needed to do to finish strong but saw again, for the millionth time in my life, how much I struggle with simple addition and subtraction. I decided to just finish as strong as I could so when I saw mile 12 approaching, I began to speed up.

And that’s when my calves awoke. The worst calf cramping I’d ever experienced joined me on that last mile. I cursed and swore and yelled at myself (in my head) that there was no way in hell these cramps were going to keep me from sub 2ing.

I hopped, tip-toed, skipped–did whatever I could to cross that finish line without stopping, trying my hardest to not lose that sub 2.

My official time was 2:00:16.

TWO HOURS AND 16 SECONDS.

Seventeen seconds people. Seventeen seconds.

And I have absolutely nothing and no one to blame but myself.

I had been so confident that I had that sub 2 in the bag, I let it run away. The race wasn’t finished at mile 8, when I had comforted my concerns at having had 2 miles so close to the necessary, required pace. The race wasn’t done at mile 10 either, when I again eased any fears at having registered two miles well over the necessary time.

Waking up at mile 12, by then it was too late.

When I crossed that finish line I was so upset at myself. I was upset that I had let myself run that race so badly. I was upset that I wasn’t celebrating with my friends who had subbed 2’d.

I was upset that at mile 7, I had already been celebrating.

I have no idea where I was here but I apparently was still in high spirits.

It took a few minutes for me to regroup and set aside my own frustrations to focus on my friends, several of whom had achieved a major goal of sub 2ing for the first time. They had been training long and hard and it really was no surprise they’d done it. They’d trained and ran a smart race (unlike me). I took several pics with them and helped them celebrate a well earned PR. I sincerely was/am happy for them as they truly deserved that accomplishment.

When I walked back to my car, I sent a message to my husband to call me as soon as he could. He’s been out of ~~town~~ the country for several weeks and it’s been so hard without him. I really needed him at that moment.

He called me and just like I knew he would, made me feel so much better. He let me know what a dummy I was but told me that this was what I needed. That I got much more from this race than what I would have gotten had I actually subbed 2.

And he’s so right.

When I got my sub 2 earlier this year, I had worked so hard for it. I put months of training (this was 6 months after having my second baby!), studied the course, practiced my splits, thought about it constantly. Crossing that finish line at 1:58:11 was seriously one of my biggest accomplishments ever–even surpassing running my first marathon. I was so emotional and so proud of myself.

I didn’t deserve this sub 2 and now, a couple of days post race, I’m really glad I didn’t get it.

————————

The rest my training week prior was somewhat uneventful–well, kinda.

On Monday I met up with my co-workers and did more stadium drills. On Tuesday I ran 4 miles with my run club at half marathon pace (ja!) and I took a rest day on Wednesday.

Thursday was the last Adventure Run my local shoe store was hosting so a bunch of people from my run club met up to run it. A lot of us were taking it easy considering we had the race that following Saturday.

I was happy with the 3 miles we mapped out but as we were reaching the end, my throat felt scratchy. Then I started to feel my palms itch. And then my legs.

I was having another allergy attack.

I was able to finish and I sat down to organize my tickets for the raffle and hoped the symptoms would just fade away.

They didn’t.

I told a friend I was feeling an attack coming but that I felt okay enough at the moment to drive myself home. I promised to text her as soon as I got there. As soon as I got home, I took some Benedryl and lay down.

The race on Saturday looming, I wondered whether or not I should run it. But yeah, we know what happened lol!

I’m frustrated that these attacks keep happening and that I’ve never gotten a clear explanation on what causes them. The doctor said it was just Exercise Induced Anaphylaxis and that there are really no preventative measure besides not running. (Yeah, no.) He suggested I take allergy medicine prior to each run but I don’t like that idea. It figure it’s just something I’ll have to deal with. It doesn’t happen every time I run or exercise and luckily I can feel the symptoms as they arise and take care of it as soon as they come. It’s just scary and frustrating.

Anyway, how was your running weekend?

Have you ever had a character building run/race? What are some things you’ve learned from running?

Euro Trip Recap–Spain

Posted by hellyontherun in Half Marathon, Race, Running and tagged with Coca-cola, Macbeth, Madrid, Parque de Madrid, Runcation, Spain, The Hunger Games, Tourist, Travel May 8, 2014

We weren’t in Spain for too long. We got there Saturday morning and went straight to the Expo after dropping off our luggage at our hotel and left the next day a few hours after the race.

But, we did do a little sight seeing so here are a few pics 🙂

I mentioned in my race recap that there was a long line at the Expo:

It wrapped around there towards the right of this pic. It moved along pretty quickly so in about an hour we were inside. The expo was actually quite large with a lot of vendors. I made sure to stop by one of my faves 🙂

After the expo, we headed back towards the hotel to grab a bite to eat. We took the metro and while we waited, I saw this advertisement:

I teach Shakespeare’s Macbeth (it’s my second favorite Shakespeare play) and thought it was so cool to see this play being done in Spanish. I would have loved to see it!

We got off near our hotel and walked a few blocks to it. Here’s a view:

The streets were really crowded; it kinda reminded me of New York.

We ate at a nearby restaurant and was shocked that my beverage of choice, Coca-cola, was 8 Euros ~ $10+ dollars!!! For ONE CAN. It turned out to be like this at most places which really saddened my heart. Even water was expensive at around 5 Euros a bottle 😦 But even though buying a coke broke the bank a little, I had to. I thought of it as a souvenir 🙂

Once back at the hotel, my husband and I decided to check out the roof top. The view:

We decided to take the stairs back down to our room 🙂

We called it a night soon after and the next day, on our walk to the start of the race, we did a little more sight seeing. We passed a bookstore and I saw this:

You might have heard of a little series called The Hunger Games. It was so cool to see it in Spanish–and for some reason, reading the title in Spanish made me giggle.

We reached a main cross street on our walk and came across the main post office.

On our hike to gear check, we found that it was in side Parque Madrid–Madrid’s main park. It was absolutely stunning. The bushes were manicured, the trees were lush, and there were gardens and statues throughout. It was also very big!

We were at the airport a couple of hours after the race headed to Italy so there wasn’t a whole lot more we were able to do. I kinda wished I had carried my phone during the race because I was able to see a lot of the city in 13.1 miles. I’d like to return to Spain someday and spend more time there. I want to visit other cities too–Valencia, Barcelona, and maybe Seville. Regardless, the time we did get was so much fun. I loved being able to talk to the locals and really get a feel for what it was like there.

And the race. The race was awesome 🙂

–Have you seen a play or movie or read a book in another language? (one of my favoritest foreign films is Life is Beautiful in Italian)

–Would you pay $10 for a coke? What outrageous prices have you encountered in your travels?

Next stop, Italy!

Rock n Roll Madrid, Spain 1/2 Marathon Recap

Posted by hellyontherun in Half Marathon, Race, Running and tagged with Half Marathon, Maraton, Memories, Race, Racing Abroad, Rock n Roll Marathon, Runcation, Running, Spain May 6, 2014

What a week!

I’m so happy to be back in the states! Traveling is so much fun but there truly is no place like home 🙂

We left on Friday afternoon catching a 12:30 flight from Phoenix to Dallas, TX. From Dallas, we flew out at around 6 p.m. to Madrid, Spain where we arrived at 10:30 Saturday morning (1:30 a.m. Phoenix time). From the airport we took a taxi to our hotel in downtown Madrid.

My husband and I speak Spanish fluently so we were able to communicate with our driver easily and sparked up a good convo with him. He was actually a runner! He asked us what our times were and when we answered, immediately told us we had a lot of work to do–his 1/2 marathon PR was 1:25!!

When we arrived at our hotel, we dropped off our luggage and headed out to find the Expo. After consulting a map, it seemed like taking the Metro was the way to go. My first Metro experience!

The Expo was a happening place and we had to wait in line for about an hour to get inside. Once we did, it was easy to get our bib and race goodies.

I learned that their size medium is actually a U.S. small lol

We hung out for a little bit but we were starving so we headed back to our hotel. We ate at a restaurant nearby and then walked around downtown for a couple of hours before we decided to head back to our room and get a good nights rest. We hadn’t really slept since the night before!

We managed to immediately crash as we were pretty exhausted and woke up around 6. The race started at 9 a.m. so we had plenty of time to get ready and walk the mile to the start line. When we got there, we noticed how there wasn’t a whole lot happening and wondered where all the people were at. We walked around for a while and then decided to drop off our bag at gear check. We looked at our map and realized it was about another mile away near the finish line! We immediately bolted towards it–it wasn’t an easy warm-up run either with hills along the way. (A preview of what awaited us). When we got there, we saw that this was where everyone was at; gear check was packed! We hurried, dropped it off, and headed back–it was getting close to go time.

A quick pic before the race 🙂

My husband was in Corral 2 and I was in Corral 4. I hung out with him for a little while but then headed to my corral with about 10 minutes to go.

The vibe was really energetic. There were people everywhere! We heard the announcer start to count down and then the elites were off! It wasn’t too long after that it was our turn (It turned out that once they said “Go!” all corrals went. There weren’t actual wave starts). So with “Highway to Hell” blasting from the speakers, I began to run.

It was the typical crowded start. I tried navigating my way around people but we were pretty elbow to elbow. I hoped it’d dissipate after a while but it never really did. At mile 3, I was still bumper to bumper with people and knew that any chance of PRing was out of the question. It wouldn’t have happened any way because the course was H-I-L-L-Y.

Side note: There were no port-a-pottys. I mean, there were some at the start line but none throughout the race. Within the first mile, I saw a ton of guys just stop along the side and hang out with trees. It was crazy!

Moving on. Once I decided this was going to be a race that would challenge my hill limits, I set my focus on maintaining a decent pace. I wanted to stay in the 10:00 minute and under range and was able to do that with the exception of one 10:27 hilly mile.

I slowed at each water station and was surprised by something else. They gave out bottles of water instead of water cups. I saw hundreds of people take one swig from the bottle and then toss it. 😦 It made me so sad to see all of it go to waste. When I got to the Powerade station same thing. 😦

At mile 8, the full marathoners separated from the halfs and it was only then that you had room to maneuver around people. Of course by that time I was too exhausted to even make an attempt lol! (Although I did muster up a 9:00 minute 11 miler.)

My new goal was to finish under 2:15 and I could tell that I was well on my way to do so, so I changed my goal to under 2:10. This would take some major mental strength but at mile 12 I knew that I had I gotten it.

I wanted to finish strong so the last half mile I picked up my pace to surge the last bit. Almost immediately, I felt my calves clench and felt intense pain shoot up my legs. It almost made me stop dead in my tracks but I told myself that I was SO close–the finish line was just right there! I forced myself to keep going and I did, grimacing the entire way. I knew that finish line photo wasn’t going to be pretty.

I crossed the line with a frozen smile at 2:08:26. I was incredibly happy with my overall time and pace (9:43) considering the race had started at 9 a.m. (midnight back home) and it being a tougher course than what I was used to. I met up with my husband and he did awesome finishing better than what he expected.

I was so exhausted the only thing I wanted to do was lay down. So I did. For like 30 minutes.

This was only Day 2 of my trip and it was already such an incredible experience. Getting to run a race in a different country was something I only dreamed of doing and it had become a reality. I loved every minute of it. I loved that it was hard. I loved that so much about it was different than what I was used to. I loved that I got to share the experience with my husband. And I love that this will be a memory that will absolutely last a lifetime.

I’ll be recapping the rest of the trip in the next few days 🙂

–Have you ran a race in a different country than you live?

–If not, if you could choose anywhere in the world, where would you like to run a race?

–What’s the randomest/grossest/weirdest thing you’ve seen during a race? (Those guys peeing along the course was just crazy to me lol!)