Race Recap

Scratch that. Let's call this a general weekend recap.

This weekend was my race-the Kentucky Derby Festival Mini Marathon (aka half marathon). The 10 days leading up to the race were filled with much obsessing over weather forecasts on Weather.com, some good painfree runs (and one crappy but pain free 10 miler), and many efforts (some failed) to eat more good food and less junk. We (J and I) drove down to Louisville on Friday, met our friend Jess for lunch, and hit up the race expo so I could pick up my race packet and see what other free stuff they had (not much). Oh, and plopped our butts at a nearby bar where J could drink some beers and I could drink a couple of beers and a lot of water. My sis and her boyfriend (who were doing the full marathon) met us up there for a little bit after their own expo trip, and Jess met us there after she left work before we all headed back to the house she and her fiance share (aka where we were bunking for the weekend). We took it easy for the rest of the evening-went to one of their favorite restuarants for an appetizer and a glass of wine, and another restaurant for dinner. Mmmm, lasagna. I stuck to my plan to be in bed around 10pm, and all was good.

Despite all my obsessing over the weather and my praying for nice, cool, non humid weather, we woke up Saturday morning to...drizzle. And humidity. Humidity+temps in the 60's=uncomfortable running weather. Thankfully, the drizzle pretty much stopped for the start of the race but picked up again shortly thereafter and got progressively heavier until around mile 6 when it stopped for good (well, for the duration of the race at least). The drizzle didn't bother me as much as the humidity, though. And the hills. Oh, the hills. The first 4 miles of the race wound through a local park that just did not look that hilly on the elevation map...WRONG! We went up, we went down a little, we went up some more, down some more, back up some more...and so on. That, plus the humidity, took a LOT out of me-I ended up sucking it up and taking a fair share of walk breaks throughout the race. Which I HATE, but you gotta do what you gotta do, and I did what I had to for my own sake and so I could finish the race. (But hey, I didn't hear/feel a peep out of my balky quad at ALL, which is a huge relief)

My chip time was 2:07:44-which is 12 minutes off my PR (1:55:42) and almost 7 mins slower than my slowest half thus far (2:01:02). And I'm okay with that. I'm not thrilled with it, but I'm okay with it. Plus, I got a free beer afterwards to keep me company while I waited for Jess and J to come find me after the race :D

After the race, we made our way back to Jess's, got cleaned up, relaxed for a bit, and headed to a great local restaurant for lunch. By then, I had talked to my sister (who had the same difficulties during the race that I did) and she and her BF had decided to take us all up on our offer of dinner so they made their way out to the house and we cooked out, drank beer, and hung out for the evening. Which was exactly what three tired runners needed!

Lessons learned-the Derby Festival Mini Marathon and Marathon course is NOT flat and fast, as my sister's running group friend had told her. Not at all. In fact, the Marathon was even worse than the Mini-they went through another (even more hilly) park in the second half of the race and according to my sis it was miserable. Plus there wasn't as much crowd support in the second half of the race, which made it tough for the marathoners.

-if you're looking for a flat, fast race, do more research on the elevation changes of the course before you sign up. Looking at the elevation map provided on the race's website is not enough.

-most importantly, high five the kids holding their hands out for high fives as much as you can...even if you're having a crappy race. It's amazing how doing so puts a smile on your face, even for a second. Plus, seeing the kids' faces light up is a great little energy rush :)

Next up-who knows? There's a local 5k that I may do this coming Saturday, depending on what the weather ends up doing. Otherwise, I don't have any races planned and am still debating what I want to do for my fall half. In the meantime, I'm going to try to step it up with the strength training and improve my overall fitness in the hopes of losing the rest of this pesky weight I've put on since last fall :P

Now, time to take it easy...my legs are a little sore but not horribly so but I took tomorrow off work anyway in case we decided to stay in Louisville through Sunday, so I have another day to relax. Hooray!