Mermaid 1/2 Marathon Post-Race Summary

I PR'd!!!! That's the most important thing about the race. ;) Final time: 2:07:05. Garmin mileage 13.19 miles.

Ok, race review. As you may have read from the previous post, I signed up for this race 4 days prior on Tuesday. It was still open and I had found a discount coupon for $11 off. So in total I paid ~$50 to run the race. The family and I headed down to Sports Basement Friday before the race to pick up my bib and spend $$. Sports Basement offered 20% off all purchases when shopping that night if in race.

The swag was awesome! Check it out! We got a cool shopping bag that is heavy duty. Could be used as a purse or regular bag. 3 colors to chose from, daughter picked blue for me. We got a necklace and a ladies fitted shirt. So cute!!

The race was pretty well run, it started at Shoreline park in Mountain View. Plenty of parking, porta potties and very clearly indicated start/finish line. The event was chip timed. Start was supposed to be at 8am, but didn't actually start until 8:18am. This was nice because hubby was taking daughter to dance class in the am and was able to make it to see me end.

I met up with a friend to run the race. Me feeling pretty good took off at 1/2 mile in and just cruised. I did wear an ipod since I was alone and like having music in the background. I was doing pretty good and turned around at the halfway point just over an hour in. Then I started to loose steam. I was thirsty and getting tired. I did push myself even though at 11 miles I was pretty tired. I kept looking at my watch and saw that I was on track for a PR so I kept pushing.

When I rounded the corner to the end, I gave it my all and finished. I had to sit down afterwards and drink water and recoup for a min or so, I was beat. I needed food and water. My friend finished shortly after I did and we headed to the food. It was a good spread. Pretzels, bananas, chocolate, grapes and pancakes. Yum! Very well set up.

All in all, I would totally do this race again. I had a lot of factors that could have prevented me from PRing. 1) Baby boy was teething the night before and was up screaming several times. (I was up with him at midnight and 3am. 2) Daughter slept in bed with me waking me up at 6am complaining about snails in the bed. 3) Dog woke me up at 5:30 am wanting out. 4) I started my period the night before and was having cramping. 5) I had just run a half marathon the weekend before.

BUT despite all that...I finished and I did better than I've done before. :) It was a good day.

And to finish my day...I went to a photography class I had signed up for a while back and planted a garden. So it's to be expected that I'm this sore today right?!

Artichoke 1/3 Marathon Post-race summary

I didn't get to it, but here is my Artichoke 1/2 Marathon summary.
The day of the race was predicted to be rainy and have high wind advisories. As we were driving to the race it was super windy!
We got to the race and talk about disorganized. We parked at the post office, I watched where people were heading and followed them to a town hall of sorts. In there I got my race number, artichoke and t-shirt. But as I was waiting for my t-shirt I realized I was in the bathroom line rather than t-shirt line. And it was a pretty long line for the one stall bathroom. I decided to walk to the corner gas station and use that bathroom instead.

I should have seen it as a sign when as I was shivering, waiting in the gusty wind for the bathroom that nobody in that line had ever done this race.

The starting line was no where to be seen, a lot of us were just huddling behind buildings or in cars waiting to see what was going to happen. The race was scheduled to start at 9am. At 9:02, still nothing was happening. Finally there was a man starting to herd people to an area in front of the town hall. But it was just the 10kers and half marathon walkers. So he verbally yelled out directions and sent them on their way clocking their time with a stop watch. He said half marathon runners will start in 10 min. At that time it had begun to rain.

9:15am we lined up in front of the town hall, we were yelled directions and sent on our way. The race wasn't marked for cars so we had to run on the side of the road. The weather was a lot worst than expected. The winds were so strong it slowed my pace down to 13-14 min/mile during big gusts. The rain was pouring and I was thoroughly soaked by 3 miles. And I mean all the way down to my shoes being squishy. I was miserable. I had trained soooo hard for this race, hoping to PR. I ran 12 miles in 1:58 the weekend before so I was on track for making it a great run. I know weather couldn't be accounted for, but it was really depressing. Each mile I kept thinking of how my husband and two children were in the car waiting for me. At the 10k turn around I stopped for a couple of minutes and stared at the sign. I almost turned around right then but decided to go for a couple of more miles and turn around later.

At 4.75 miles out there was a turn around. I thought yippee they cut the course short due to weather. At that turn around they handed out bottles of water. What was I going to do with a whole bottle of water?! I was able to hand it to some spectator walking near the turn so I didn't have to carry it. (FYI there was one water stop before this at the 10k turnaround.)

Then as I was running back, I saw someone pointed to turn right on another road. Aha, this is where the extra miles come in. I went for it and like the race director said, ran until I reached a gate and turned around. At least this road was in a canyon and was protected from the wind. It wasn't however sheltered from the rain.

As I was running back to the main road, there was the last water stop, a piece of plywood on the ground with some cups of water on it. I grabbed a sip and then headed home. The wind being behind me should have been a good thing, but nope. It was at an angle so I had to be careful since it was so strong and would push me into the street into oncoming traffic. I had read that the course was marked long (well at the gate there wasn't even anyone there indicating where to turn around) so at 13.1 I lapped my watch. 2:23 it said. Which was right on with my slowest half. I ran by the car and husband and daughter were watching me, cheering. I grabbed my daughter's hand and ran to the "finish". And I say "finish" because it was just 3 cones on the ground in front of the town hall. The guy with the stopwatch was in the building out of the rain/wind. So I had to walk over to the doorway, and he read my time 2:24 on his watch and marked my bib. My garmin quoted the course to be 13.35 miles.

We didn't stick long after the race, I grabbed a candy bag and was given a generic race medal. It is a pic of 3 guys running across a finish line. No engraving...nothing. I guess that's what you get for paying only $25 to do a half marathon.

I changed out of my sopping wet clothes and headed home. I couldn't help but be disappointed that all of my hard work went for nothing. BUT, a friend let me know that there was another half marathon in our area on the following Saturday. And as luck would have it, it was still had open spots AND I found a discount coupon for it. It was fate. I signed up on Tuesday to run the Mermaid 1/2 Marathon in Mountain View.

Books Read 2010

2010 Books:

1. The End (Series of Unfortunate Events #13) by Lemony Snicket
2. I Am The Messenger by Markus Zusak
3. Comfort Me with Apples by Ruth Reichl
4. Toddlers Gone Wild! Rants from a Mommy Brain by Rebecca Eckler
5. Shanghai Girls by Lisa See
6. Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay
7. The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein
8. Switchcraft by Mary Castillo
9. Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman
10. Girl with The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
11. The Gift by Cecelia Ahern
12. Restoring Grace by Katie Fforde
13. The Importance of Being Married by Gemma Townley
14. My Life in France by Julia Child

#13 and 14 were good books, The Importance of Being Married was so fun to read, just a light chick-lit book. Julia Child was really cool to read because I saw how much work she did on her book. It did make me feel a little bad that I feel I cook yet I do a ton of short cuts. I guess if I had the time I could cook everything from scratch...

Book #15 currently reading: A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolick

Blogging Challenge #10

Did you build forts as a child?

I was very fortunate as a child in that I lived on 5 acres, we had woods and a pond, a barn, a pool etc. I also had several boy cousins and tomboy girl cousins, perhaps what you get when you live in the country. So needless to say we did a ton of building. Whether it was a raft in the pond or a fort in the woods. We were outside daily, rain or shine, warm or cold. I remember one fort we built, more like a teepee and I believe it may still be up today.

Another impressive structure was built at my grandmother's house (she lived on a farm which is still in our family today), we were giving free reign of the land and we built a 3 story tree-house (well, not full tree house) but we did have an elevator which was basically 2 paint buckets a rope and pulley. The farm had a junk yard where old tractor and car parts, wood, etc was thrown and we'd scavenge that for goods for our fort. It was glorious. I am so thankful that my grandmother allowed us kids to bring all that stuff into her front yard. Yes, the fort was in her front yard, lol. And she even allowed it to be up for a few years till we were over it before asking us to take it down.

I can't wait till my kids are in true fort building age, it was so much fun to do.

Books 2010

2010 Books:
1. The End (Series of Unfortunate Events #13) by Lemony Snicket
2. I Am The Messenger by Markus Zusak
3. Comfort Me with Apples by Ruth Reichl
4. Toddlers Gone Wild! Rants from a Mommy Brain by Rebecca Eckler
5. Shanghai Girls by Lisa See
6. Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay
7. The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein
8. Switchcraft by Mary Castillo
9. Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman
10. Girl with The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
11. The Gift by Cecelia Ahern
12. Restoring Grace by Katie Fforde

Currently reading books 13 and 14.
I can't really assign which one will be which. I started reading "My Life in France" by Julia Child but it's a bit slow so in the meantime I began reading "The Importance of Being Married" by Gemma Townley. I believe The Importance of Being Married will be my 13th book because I am farther along in that one.
I have several more in my cue, but sitting waiting in the wings are:
Jodie Picoult's new book: House Rules
and book club choice: The Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick
and sequal to The Importance of Being Married: The Wild Affair.

Guess I gotta get reading...

Race in 3 days!

My race is in 3 days. I feel pretty prepared for it. I ran a 12 miler last weekend in under 2 hours. I'm hoping I PR this race, ideally I come in under 2 hours for a half marathon, but we'll see. My biggest worry is that because this is a small race they won't time it like they do in the bigger races. That means my PR (if I do) will not be recorded. I guess I'll have my Garmin GPS watch as proof, I'll take a picture if that's the case. Fingers crossed that they have some accurate timing system, and fingers crossed that it won't rain this Sunday as it is forcasted.

Blogging Challenge #9

What's an Easter memory from your childhood? How is/will be your child's Easter celebration different or the same?

My Easter's were celebrated with my grandma and family. I really miss how she would dye easter eggs with each of the grandchildren's names on them and hide them around her house. As each family showed up, us kids would look for our egg. The last families to show up would have all of us watching the kids hunting giving them hints as to where the egg was or wasn't. This year when we dyed eggs, I wrote both kiddos name on an egg each for them.