May 7, 2013
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Race day
May 4, 2013
What a phenomenal day. Started out a windy 55 degrees with no rain in the forecast.
My friend, Ty and my sister were unable to be in my corral in the back because of the heightened security due to the Boston marathon bombing. This meant I had to catch up to them so I went out at a good 11 min/mile pace, then increased it to 10 min/mile. At mile 4 I got a text from my sister that she was waiting for me at the entrance of the Indianapolis motor speedway (mile 6). It was so great to see her. I ran up to her and hugged her and then said "I'm doing a 10min/mile pace, lets keep it up". It was probably faster than that during the run segments. During the entire race I did 5 mins running and one minute walking off and on which averaged 10min/mile. My sister and I didn't chat much because we were doing a race pace, but she did mention that the run/walk was a little difficult in terms of her breathing because she never got a rhythm down with her breathing.
Somehow my sister and I ended up passing Ty, the best we can guess was it was around mile 11. At this point I had stopped looking for his orange shoes because I was getting tired. My breathing became out of control and I had to pull back on the pace. My sister didn't mind because that meant she wasn't keeping up with my weaving and accelerating to get around people. It was the only way to break the monotony. The wind picked up a few times late in the race and if it was a headwind I simply said to myself, "the breeze feels good" (against the humidity) to keep my thoughts positive.
I finished with an awesome time of two hours and eleven minutes, which gives me a large challenge to break it in the future. My sister's personal best is two hours and eight minutes, which she accomplished on a hilly course just a month earlier.
Next week I start the Jeff Galloway speed training half marathon training. I will need to do hills if I intend to do the Nike women half, which runs across the Golden Gate Bridge. I also plan to do a flat course mid-training again.
My next race is the See Jane Run 5k in June where I will try to beat my 28 minute record.
My sister finished at the same time as me, and my friends time was two hours and thirty minutes. He had some stomach issues on the course and walked a large portion of it. My brother in law ran the 5k and had a personal best time as well! So happy he's gotten into running. Now if we could only convince my dad....
I had stomach issues after the race and ended up throwing away 1/3 of my lunch because I was feeling ill. Glad I brought some pepo with me, I certainly used it.
This was my sister's birthday and at dinner I had a mild meal of Mongolian beef (low salt) with brown rice and a gluten free beer. Then proceeded to eat a lot of gluten-filled cookies
because that was her "cake". Two days later and it's difficult to know how the gluten is affecting my sore calves, core and back - is it worse than if I had abstained? I had gluten after my last half too so it's hard to know. I also had neck tightness before the race (stress?) so that's not a good indicator either. I keep thinking about blueberry donuts and panera cinnamon bagels, so I may just have to splurge one of these mornings.
Lots of sleep and stretching is in my future
