I know this is a little overdue...
Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, S & I packed up the car & headed to Boston. We were staying at the Hotel exactly at the expo & race start, which was a first for me. After checking in at the hotel, we headed to the expo to pick up our packets.
Nothing special here.
A boring plain white cotton T, and that was about it, besides the coupons and race fliers. After a quick lunch, we headed to the Prudential Center for a little shopping, followed by dinner at Cheesecake Factory.
Back at the hotel, I got my gear together...
My first race in my Team Tough Chik outfit!
In the middle of the night, I got awoken by a call from my alarm company. Kevin's friend set off the alarm at our house and the police showed up, nice. Finally I made it back to bed, in time to wake up a few hours later.
Race morning, we ate breakfast, got ready & snapped a quick pic.
I was nervous about this race, as most of you knew. I hadn't done a long run in probably 6 weeks, and it was only 8 miles. For the few weeks leading up to the race, I had only been running once a week for about 4 miles at a time I knew my endurance was lacking, and was hoping my knee would hold up. At least I looked cute!
We headed down to line up in a self-seeded corral, and opted for the 10:30 group. I knew I'd lag behind that, but I wanted to start up with S. The race started with the police helicopter flying overhead, and circling over us. We started off... but didn't know where the start line was! There was no area marking the race start!! I just started my Garmin over one of the timing mats & hoped it was the right one.
My plan was to go as slow as I needed to, walk when I needed to, and try hard not to DNF.
I started off slow and steady, and really started to slow around miles 6-8 and on.
I saw S before I hit the turn around, and cheered her on. I stopped for more water at almost every water stop. One of the water stops manned by Police Academy students ran out if cups, thankfully I had my bottles to refill! The weather was hot, but thankfully there was a nice breeze as we ran along the Charles River, and lots of shade from trees lining the sidewalks. The views were pretty, so I took a couple minutes to take a picture or two as an excuse to stop.
From mile 7 on, there was a group of girls I was getting used to seeing. Many of them would pass me, I'd pass them back, for almost the entire rest of the race. There was one girl in particular, who cramped up at mile 11ish i think... I passed her & she never passed me back. Then after a short side loop, she was in front of me. I'm pretty sure, she skipped the loop, boooo!!
The hills were wearing me out!!
I started running 2 minutes or 3 minutes and walking 1 minute. My knee was achy & I was exhausted. I just wanted to be finished!!
Thankfully, I was soon recognizing the waterfront where we started, thank god, I was going to make it!! However, the same problem we had with an unlabeled start, we had with the finish line. Where was it?? Could I sprint to the end? I guessed it was the timing mat when I saw it, and picked it up to an 8:47 pace for the final push and passed a girl I had been battling the whole race.
We exited back into the expo center, there were bagels, fruit, and coconut water. I grabbed an orange and a coconut water and headed back to the hotel room to meet up with S.
Even though it wasn't pretty, I finished Half Marathon #10!
2:50:24
13 min/mile pace
1373/1394 Females 19-29
5336/5400 overall
yikes, I really was back of the pack in this one!
Good news?
I had plenty of time to think out there about how important training is, and how I need to get everything in for 70.3 training so I make it!
