Well, what can I say about this race... I swear this race was jinxed from the start. First, there was a bit of a drama going on with naming the beer that was served at the race. It started as a friendly little Facebook competition. I had submitted about 6 or 8 names, and all of my names were up for voting. Alan submitted a couple choices also, and his made the final round. Finally it was down to the finals and my "Glass City Glory" was up against Alan's "BQ Brew". Voting was going along fine until we realized a third choice was going to overtake both of us unless we combined forces. All votes were redirected to Glass City Glory, and at 10am on a Friday an email went out announcing it had won. Woohoo! Apparently the Facebook poll was not able to be turned off, and the other competitor (26.2 Brew) kept getting votes after the decision and he declared that he had won instead. Jabs went back and forth for weeks. He was a sore loser.
Then, race week arrived. Early forecasts showed a great day - although maybe even getting a little warm, with sun and a high of 60 degrees. Perfect! But, the day before the race, the forecast changed to rain with escalating percentages of rain. boooooo
Instead of the pre-race tradition of watching Run Fatboy, Run, we watched Prefointaine. Don't get me wrong, the guy was an awesome running and a legend to look up to... but he certainly wasn't a marathon runner, and just because he can break world records at the 5K, I sure can not. And the ending of the movie (oh you know, the one where he dies in a car crash!) was a bit of a downer too.
But we did enjoy a yummy pasta dinner at Carabbas while the kids spent the night at friend's houses. So, moving on to race day... we started our morning early, around 5:00am. Plan was to get out the door before 6am, and we actually did that. My outfit changed from tank top to t-shirt and hat to keep the rain off my face.
We parked in a small lot at UT, near the Law building and ran into my friend Carol, who hadn't even planned on running the half marathon until she got "race fever" at the expo and bought someone's bib (the half marathon has been sold out for months). Waiting for the starting line we also saw several friends, former co-workers, and neighbors. Everyone was in good spirits despite the drizzle.
When the gun went off, we weren't quite where we needed to be in the corral, but we got started about 2 mins after that and took off. I honestly can't remember much of the first 7 or so miles. It was a nice run through Ottawa Hills neighborhoods. Some quite ritzy. We kept up with my friend Kristen who was running her first half. She appeared to be breezing through it. After got into Wildwood park, the half marathon split off and we heading out on the bike trail. Alan helped me keep my pace, which was all detailed in a specific plan. The plan was kind of bell shaped, starting out a little slower and having 14 miles of 8:51 pace. No big deal huh? He also carried water for me, so I wouldn't be tempted to walk through the water stops. What a sweetie!
Around mile 11-13 we went out on King road. I wasn't looking forward to that point. It wasn't really too bad, but I was in need of more energy so I put on my headphones and jammed some music. We wandered around Sylvania, and then headed into Olander Park. We were pretty soaked by now as the rain hadn't stopped. Luckily it wasn't a downpour, and it was not windy, so for the most part it kind of kept up refreshed.
Coach Alan said we were pretty much on track until around mile 16. That's around the time I lost interest in being successful :( Miles 17-19 were on Sylvania Ave, on a small sidewalk, and with the traffic still there I remember it being pretty dreadful. Finally we got back into Wildwood park. I was looking forward to that part of the course, knowing that the end was getting close, but I really didn't have much energy to continue at that point. I should have taken 3 gels by that point, but I only took 2 and had no interest in taking anymore. I got passed by a friend who had been shadowing us the whole way, and that felt pretty disappointing. He was not having as hard of a time as I was. I think it was somewhere in the park (miles 20-21) I decided to walk a little. It wasn't much, because I knew it would take forever if I continued to walk, so it was just enough to catch my breath.
As the mile dragged on I was hoping someone would just offer me a ride to the end :) But eventually, I got there, and there was no way on earth I was going to sprint through the finish. I just made it a point to smile, lift my knees (so it didn't look like I was sloshing through it) and get it done.
Finish time was 4:00:23.
I was totally heartbroken to see that I not only didn't get that BQ that I had been training for, but I also was so close to getting a sub 4 hour race. UGGGGGH. I was shaking and we needed to get some food. We hobbled over to the food area and grabbed a beer, and a cookie. Jennifer met us there and gave me a supportive hug. She could tell I was pretty bummed. In fact, everyone could tell because I was bawling. And shaking even worse. A volunteer came over to ask if I was OK. I looked up at him with big sobbing eyes and answered YES. I guess that wasn't too convincing because he brought back more of his medical volunteer friends. They checked my blood sugar level. It was 120, so it was OK. But the purple lips and shaking was not good, so they took me to a golf cart. The whole time I was saying "but my husband won't know where I am!! He's getting a beer!!". Luckily he did catch up with me, but he had to walk to the tent. There was no room on the cart :( We got checked into the tent, which was nice and warm. I did enjoy that. I laid there for about 15 minutes and ate some food. Eventually I came around and was looking much better. I was allowed to leave.
We headed straight back to the beer tent for another Glass City Glory. We toasted to a sucky race and had some food. On the way home we noticed Alan had been given a half marathon medal, instead of the full. Seriously??? Wow, what a race I'd like to forget.
