Half Marathon Race Recap & I'm Back (again :)

Consider me your fair weather blogger.  For you semi-anonymous bloggers, do you ever find that sometimes you think "sh*t, I wish I hadn't told 'insert name here' about my blog?"  I do.  Every once in a while.  And it delays me sometimes from posting or maybe just not saying what I would otherwise.  I don't even know if she reads it anymore.  Hehe - I hope not.  Anyhow, on with the business.  I'm not going to catch you up on the last 2 1/2 months entirely, just the main highlights.  So after my last race recap about the Wpg Police Relay, two weeks later was the Fargo Go Far Challenge.  Gulp.  That would the 5 km on Friday night and the half marathon on Saturday morning.  Silly? Yes.  Glad I did it?  Yes.  Would I do it again?  Probably not.  It was a pain in the ass.

Friday afternoon, we drive out to the States and get there in time to hit the expo and check stuff out.  I was looking for shoes, compression capris, and dual layer socks.  I left with Toms.  Go figure!  I picked up my race kits for both races, headed to the hotel to check in and change and head right back.  I was dreading it because I didn't know anyone else who was doing it.  That was short-lived.  I pulled in, wandered towards the start line and instantly found a group of about 10 people from my local run club. I was so happy to see them!!!  I instantly felt better.  We knocked out the 5 km which was super slow going because the majority of people were walkers and there was about 10,000.  Wowsers.  That would be medal #1.

Note my Boston Strong headband!

Here's where my regret for the Friday night run kicks in.  Trying to get out of the parking lot.  Not one person directing traffic.  I pulled out of my parking spot and then moved one car length in 40 minutes.  I was starving.  My friend was waiting in the hotel room raiding the vending machine because I had my car and she was starving.  Finally, I kept seeing North Dakota plates heading in the opposite direction as all the out of towner plates.  I spotted a cute guy in a truck heading the opposite direction and I yelled "HEY!" into his open window.  I said "what don't I know?" and he winked and said "follow me".  I pulled back into the spot I pulled out of 40 minutes prior and backed out in the other direction and followed him to a back exit to the parking lot.  C'mon now!!!  Mental note for next year.  I got back to the hotel and changed quickly and then we headed out for supper.  There we were at the Olive Garden, eating supper at 10 pm the night before the half.  Ouch.

We wake up bright & early.  5:30am I think.  We check the ever changing forecast and it just says "current condition: HEAVY RAIN".  OH hell no.  I run down the hallway of the hotel in my pj's to look out the exterior door and it's raining lightly and there are huge puddles.  Ran into the maintenance man and he said the rain had been coming down hard.  I did the best i could to prepare.  We also got stuck in traffic on the way to the race.  The interstate was backed up for miles and miles.  I did some crazy little things to get past a whole bunch of cars to get my friend there because her 10 km started earlier.  Again, next year, I'm not getting on the interstate.  I'm going through town.  I guarantee not one local was on that interstate.  

Okay, the race.  When we started it was cloudy and it was raining.  Not really hard but enough to get wet.  Then it stopped after about 20 minutes.  It stayed cloudy for the next while.  Part of the course is a bit out & back so when I was at mile 3, this roar of cheering starts and running towards us super fast and looking awesome is the first place male.  We turned around to watch him go and I note that my sign says mile 3 and his says mile 9.  HOLY SH*T.  Then a smidge later, there comes the first place female.  She looked amazing.  AMAZING.  I often thing that really elite female runners tend to look just way too skinny and this woman just looked amazing.  Healthy, strong, fit, fast, amazing.  She was a machine.  I felt like I was doing fairly well.  I was looking forward to a PR.  At mile 10, the sun came out.  And it came out hard.  I felt like I was being steamed.  With everything including the people being wet, the humidity was insane.  This was the first time I ever felt like I wouldn't finish a race.  Shortly after that, I started walking and judging by my distance on my Garmin, I did the math and figured out how fast I would have to walk the last three miles to get under three hours.  I booked it, I kept to that time and under for the rest of the time and it wasn't until I entered the parking lot of the Fargodome that I realized I wasn't going to do it.  You see, you have to stick the shortest distance possible on the course for you to travel 21.1 km.  I don't always do that because I sort of abide by the "slower traffic keep right" so many of my turns, I'm swinging wide and so on.  I hit 21.1 on my Garmin as I was entering the parking lot.  I also hit 3 hours seconds after that.  I still had to run around the Fargodome and down into the dome to the finish line.  I was so sad at that moment.  If only I'd run a little bit longer before deciding to walk.  This was also the first race that I felt actually sick when finishing.  I ran across that finish line so hard, in a daze, hearing my name being yelled by people's faces that I couldn't focus on.  My eyes were scanning for the medal people as I did my drunken where's my medal stumble while taking note of where the garbage cans were so I wouldn't just barf on the pavement.  

Finally, I round the corner and spot the medal lady.  I stopped in my tracks about 10 feet from her and said "you're going to have to come to me".  She laughed and came to me and gave me my medals.  I rounded another corner and my friend Steph hollered my name.  I smiled, don't remember what I said and headed to the food.  All of the food looked like something I couldn't do so I grabbed two chocolate milks and some cookies (which I later dropped).  I chugged the first chocolate milk and started to feel better almost immediately.  Incidentally, at the time I finished, emergency workers were busy treating more people for heat related running issues in that 30 minutes than they ever had before.  

So one of these photos - the guy actually got my attention and that's why my arms are up in the air and I look so happy.  And the other one where I'm smiling is right near the end and I said to them "i suppose you want me to look like i'm having an awesome time?" so then I did a super awesome chariots of fire slow motion run.  Super funny.

I actually got three medals.  One for the 5 km, one for the half, and then the Go Far challenge medal for doing both.  Again, I don't need to do this challenge again!  Next time, I would much rather take my time at the expo, have a nice relaxing evening and supper and be in bed early enough.  

We went back to the hotel and showered and got ready to then go walk like crazy doing the shopping marathon portion of the weekend.  After all the cursing of the race that I did, our first stop was Scheel's and I bought some new runners and some Under Armor compression capris.  Say whaaaat??  I don't need those, I'm never running again remember??  Pfft.  

Love them!!!

The next day, we settled in with our carload of shopping for the two hour drive home and let me tell you.  I was moving okay.  Slowly, but okay when I got in the car.  However, we stopped to hit one more store and grab a bite about halfway home and when I tried to get out of the car, I realized I'd aged about 80 years in 60 minutes of sitting in the car.  Holy crap.  

So what I learned . . . 

1. Life Savers in a roll don't work well for fueling if it's raining out.  Way too sticky.  They need to be individually wrapped.

2. Nuun doesn't like me.  I wanted to like it so bad because so many people do but it gives me terrible bloating and gas.  TERRIBLE.  Through trial and error, I realized that my body does not like sugar alcohols, namely malitol and sorbitol.  Booo.

3.  Don't trust the Garmin.  Allow for that extra distance when calculating my time because I do not run the route of the front runner.  

Oh and to add insult to injury, this was the flight of stairs I had to walk up after feeling like I'd been hit by a train just to get out of the dome.  Mean people.

HILARIOUS!!!!

I promise the future updates won't be this long!!  Thanks for sticking with me!  Oh and I should mention, this half marathon was a PR but the slightest time.  I really wanted under 3 hours but I should be happy that it was the teeniest fraction faster than the last.  And I have another opportunity in September and if I can't get out of that race, then I'm registered for one in October too.  :)

Oh and this is my dear friend Heather who recently just moved away from me.  sniff sniff.  She would come over on Monday nights for supper and wine and Bachelor/Bachelorette.  This was her expression when I told I ran not once, but twice, that weekend.  Hehe - this is why I do it . .  . to horrify/impress people.