Constantly Learning

Saturday, October 25 was my third half marathon. The first, at Tybee Island, GA last year, was fraught with physical limitations due to severe shin splints. The second was a wretched in a nearby town that went along the interstate and I could not wait until it ended. Going into the Spinx RunFest, I felt stronger than ever thanks to my fabulous Team Tiara training group. We met up at the County offices near the baseball stadium, where the race would start, at 7am. It was dark, cool and wet. The forecast anticipated that the rain would move off before the start, but it was not meant to be. The 12 of us who had trained were excited, many of whom were experiencing their first half or full marathons. We would all run in our pimped out tiaras, begging for attention and hoping through that to spread the word about Girls on the Run. We moved our way to the Start Line and I already began to have self doubt. You see, the night before the race, I had made a fatal mistake...

I checked my email right before I went to bed and lo and behold, my LSAT score came in at 9:35 pm. I almost decided to wait and open it after the race on Saturday, but knew that I would not be able to stand it. So, I called Jeff over to the couch and we opened it. I could not believe my eyes and thought that my LASIK had suddenly worn off because I could not be reading it correctly. I actually dropped 4 points. WHAT??! I had studied and done many exercises and felt that I had it under control. I was absolutely devastated and did what any self-respecting girl would do - retreated to the bathtub where I could cry in private. I beat myself up for most of the night and sleep was not easy to come by. While I didn't cry myself to sleep, I certainly hurt as if I did.

As I lined up at the Start, the score resounded in my mind. I pushed it hard and tried to put all my focus on the task at hand - running 13.1 miles. Thankfully, I had Christina to run with for awhile. As each mile ticked off, I peeked at my Garmin - another thing that I promised myself I would not do. I knew early on that I was going out too fast. At mile 5, I started to feel it. I had problems earlier in the week with my abdomen and what potentially could be another hernia and the pain was coming back. I slowed down and told Christina to go ahead. I was able to catch up with her after a brief walk and we ran together for a bit more. Then, it felt as if my whole midsection seized up. It was cramps, it was a burning, searing pain into my ribcage. Every breath I took hurt more. So, I walked for awhile. I could see Jeff up ahead and see that he was walking too. The more I walked, the more frustrated I got. I was frustrated with myself for scoring lower on my test; frustrated that I could not push past the pain; and frustrated that I couldn't get it together mentally. I would promise myself at the next corner, I would run again and no more walking. But, then I would just stop running. Saturday just wasn't my day mentally. I know that running is 25% physical and 75% mental and everyone has bad runs. I just hate that my bad run came on race day when I was so prepared. At Mile 11, I caught up with Jeff and we slogged through the remainder of the race together. We are both disappointed with our times and the race results, but we got to run into Fluor Field together, go around the warning track, and cross the finish line together.

I have learned so much from my Team Tiara group. I made friends that I will cherish forever. And I know that my next half at Kiawah in December I will still be well trained and I'm certainly not opening any emails the day before!

Go Speed Racer, Go!!

This past Saturday was my last long run before the Spinx Half Marathon. It was an 8 mile run in Birmingham. Jeff and I have come to love the small community of Mountain Brook, which is laden with runners and cyclists. Our first mile, Jeff set the pace and we were at 10:52, which I thought was a little fast, especially for a semi-long, slow run. At mile 3, we stopped to fuel and hydrate and I recommended we run the next 3 easy and then blow out the last two. Around mile 4.5, Jeff informed me the pace had not slowed at all. I have given up looking at my Garmin while I run. It reassuringly beeps to let me know when I've completed another mile, but I no longer am a pace-peeker. It's better if I just wait until the end of the run. It's almost like Christmas morning, you know the paper covers the gift and breaking through the tape and layers is the fun part. Another short stop at Mile 5 for water and we were on our way back to the car for the last 3 miles. We went by the golf course, where my mantra turned into, "Please don't slice, please don't slice..." I felt strong and even. No longer feeling like my form is clumsy is a confidence booster. As the Garmin beeped for Mile 7, I "accidently" peeked - 10:15. What? Could that be right? One more mile to go. We entered the trail portion of our run and I felt that my pace would automatically slow some, as we dodged some rocks and a dog that didn't seem to have an owner anywhere nearby. (He was a pretty golden retriever, in case you were wondering, content to just sniff the grass here and there and mosey aimlessly about his morning). We got to our parking lot and had just a little bit more to go, so we ran the perimeter of the lot. At Mile 8, I was actually disappointed that the run had come to an end. You can imagine my delight when I looked down and saw that my average pace for the 8.01 miles was 10:35. And the last mile, the pace didn't slow at all. Another 10:15. When I began training for Spinx, I thought I would do well with a 2:20 (Tybee was my PR at 2:37), but now I'm thinking that I may even be able to cut that down. Saturday will tell.

Flash forward to this morning:
My last day of speed work before Spinx. A 30 minute tempo run. I've learned to love intervals, but I'm still warming up to tempo runs. We had 5 of my regular group show up - 3 fast people (no, I'm not in that group), myself, and our leader, Kendra, who is doing the full marathon Saturday. She and I talked before we took off and since she was scheduled for an easy 3, we decided to do a regular 3 mile route and she would run with me. I didn't know if I should be offended that an easy 3 for her would be my tempo, but I didn't want to run by myself, so I went with it. The first mile I knew was fast and she looked at her watch, made a noise, and I said I didn't want to know. "Don't tell me!" I wheezed. The air was so cold, my throat and lungs began to hurt around mile 2. I slowed somewhat. I know that ruins the tempo run effect, but I also knew I couldn't maintain the current pace for much longer. About mile 2.5, my hernia began to hurt, causing my midsection and core to seize up. I was hurting some last night from it, but a short fast walk and some long, deep breaths calmed it somewhat. I was determined to finish strong, so I picked it back up. Kendra admitted that this was not an easy 3 miles for her, making me feel much better. When the beep sounded indicating 3 miles, I finally looked at my Garmin. 3.01 miles at 9:49 pace. Whoo hooo! It was so good to see a single digit for my pace. So, watch me run. Go Speed Racer, Go!!