ORRRC Half Marathon Race recap

What a day.   No, really, what.a.day.  I'm not exaggerating when I say that today truly was the best race ever.  What made it so awesome, you might ask?  Well, settle down my friends... Marcie's gonna tell a story.

Once upon a time, there was a little girl who loved to swim.  She joined a team and quickly became one of the top swimmers in her age group in the state.  The little girl loved to compete, and to get faster.  She continued swimming for many years, right up through her first year of college.  She never grew tired of racing.  The little girl eventually had to stop swimming as she by now was married with children of her own.  She missed the competitive atmosphere of the pool, and missed pushing her body to the limit.  There just wasn't time for her sport anymore now that she was a mother and wife and a teacher, and just too busy, and it made her sad.  

Well, after her fourth and fifth children (twins!) were around 2 years old, the mother decided that she needed to do something for herself, as she was tired of being out of shape.  She bought some running shoes, and she started to run.  The mother quickly fell in love with the sport of running, and competed in a couple of shorter races before trying her first half marathon.  She found an even greater love for longer distances, and soon after started to meet other mother runners like herself.  Still, her reasons for running were more selfish than anything--it was her "me time" away from her kids, and she also loved racing and beating others, as well as her own times.

As she ran with her new friends more and more, however, the mother runner grew to love the companionship that running was now giving to her.  She started waking up at ungodly hours to run with her friends.  Now, not all of her friends ran at the same pace as the mother runner did.  She learned that running didn't always have to be fast, that there was something to be gained from running at a different pace sometimes.  The mother runner decided to train for her first marathon, and her friends trained right along with her, motivating her along the way.   A few weeks before her first marathon, though, she had signed up for a half-marathon race.  She wasn't sure that she really wanted to race the distance for a PR (personal record), as she was worried about expending too much emotion and energy too close to her marathon race.  When the mother runner found out that one of her friends was looking to run a PR, and that her pace was comparable to what the mother runner wanted to run at during the race, the mother runner asked her friend if she wanted a pacer.  And this is exactly what the two friends ended up doing.  During the race, the mother runner discovered that running with a friend to help her PR was the most amazing thing ever.  She loved every single second of the race.  She learned something about herself, too: that running a race didn't have to always be about PRing.  It could be about patience, and persistence, and friendship, and most of all, the joy of running. 

OK so that maybe was a bit corny, but it is all true, every bit of it.  What a fantastic race!  Jamie (my friend) and I had discussed in detail how this race would go.  A couple of days before, she decided she wouldn't wear her Garmin watch, and thus wouldn't know our pace. This was so she wouldn't stress about how fast (or slow) she was running.  This ended up being the perfect plan for Jamie.  I let her guide us... when she wanted to pull back, we pulled back.  When she sped up, I followed her.  I kept a steady stream of conversation going, especially when I could tell Jamie was getting tired.  At 10 miles, I looked down at my watch and I knew at that point that we were going to go sub-2:00 (Jamie's ultimate goal, but one she really didn't think she could make).  I was so so excited, and I just wanted to sprint for the finish!  But of course, I didn't.  This wasn't about me at all... it was about running with Jamie and keeping her going even when she felt she couldn't do it. 

Running through the finish line, watching Jamie's face as she realized how truly fast we'd gone... well, I'm getting goosebumps right now just typing about it.  Just amazing... no other words can describe it.  Here are our splits:

Mile 1: 9:03

Mile 2: 9:11

Mile 3: 9:06

Mile 4: 9:03

Mile 5: 8:59
Mile 6: 9:11
Mile 7: 8:57
Mile 8: 9:05
Mile 9: 8:57
Mile 10: 8:59
Mile 11: 8:43
Mile 12: 8:47
Mile 13: 8:33

                                                                       0.15:      1:10
                               Garmin time: 13.15 miles in 1:57:44.   Official time = 1:57:47
 

 Here are Christine, Robyn, me, Tamara and Jamie after the race!

We collected our bling and I headed back out onto the course.  I had a planned training run of 17 miles today, and was going to run another 2 miles out-and-back to get in the last 4 miles.  That was the plan... well, after a mile I ran into my friend Tamara, and decided to finish her race with her.  So I did get in 2 extra miles.   We finished up our morning with some delicious soup and yummy cookies at the YMCA, and headed back home.  I rode with Christine, Robyn and Tamara, so the trip back to Columbus went by quickly. 

And here I am... feeling extremely excited about my full marathon in 3 weeks. I felt so wonderful on today's run!   Seriously, like I could have ran for many more miles.  I cannot wait to see what I can do when I get to run 26.2 miles on April 27!

A marathon of a blog post...

I started this post two weeks ago, realizing that it'd been a month since my last blog post.  Never got back to it, as of course life always seems to get in the way.   It's been a busy month of running, working, and mommy-ing. This post is going to be devoted to running, though, as I've got a lot to say after so many weeks!  Sorry if I get a bit wordy... pull up a chair, this is a long one!

I've been heavily into training for my first full marathon, which is on April 27.   Exactly 4 weeks from today, eek!  I was able to push to 5 runs a week for a couple of weeks in late February/early March, but as the long runs on weekends have increased in distance, my body has responded by telling me that 4 runs per week is plenty (plus 1-2 days of core work).  Training for this marathon has been so different than training for my three half-marathons.   I've had company on probably close to 60-75% of my runs.  I love running with friends, as it makes the miles just fly by.   

 I've found various runners to match my goal paces on the different types of runs that I do, which has been really cool.  My long slow distance runs are always with Jen, the best friend a runner could ever have.  She's not even racing in a spring marathon, but she's done every single long run with me.  She'll be by my side during my race, as my cheerleader and coach.  I can truly say I wouldn't be training for this race if it weren't for her.  We've had some company on a few of our runs as well; Jess is training for the same full as me so our scheduled distances typically match up.  Our kids are similar ages so there's always a lot to talk about on our runs.

 This is Jen, me and Jess after one of our long runs!

When I want to run a bit faster, I call up Jenny or Tamara K., as they both are speedy mamas who push me hard.  I try to get in at least one hard road workout per week, either tempo or progressive.  Jenny is in nursing school, however, so I don't get to run with her as much as I'd like.  Wednesday mornings have become a party in Worthington Hills, as up to seven of us meet at 4:30 AM for miles plus hill repeats.  The party-goers vary from week to week, but I can always count on Jamie to be there.  She's the leader of our local Moms Run This Town group and I love running with her... awesome sense of humor in that one!  

 Here we have Jen, me, Jess, Laurie and Jamie in the front, and Lyndsey and Stuart in the back, lighting up the Hills!

I still am on the treadmill typically once per week, doing speed work (interval repeats or ladder sets), since I know my legs still need to know how to run fast even though I'm running a huge distance.  I do still "dread" it, but it's too cold and dark out when I can fit in track repeats, so the gym it is.

So that's my training, in brief.   Here is a quick peek at the weekly miles I've been running... we do drop-back weeks every other week, where our long runs go down a bit. I think that these weeks, in addition to running 2 runs per week (hills and long run) at a pace that is very comfortable for me (over a minute slower than my half-marathon pace) has what's keep me injury-free as well as motivated to train.  

Look at that 43-mile week in there! :) 

Well, yesterday was the big one... 21 miles!  I've never ran so far, or for such a long period of time.  It was just Jen and me, as Jess has some tweaky ankles right now and didn't want to have to pull out during our run.  We started at 6:00 AM to 1) hopefully escape the predicted rain, and 2) get finished by around 10:00 so Charlotte could get to her swim lessons at 10:45.   Both tasks were basically accomplished :)  We began at our usual spot, the beginning of the trail behind the Hills Market in Worthington.  Recently on our long runs we've had friends come with us and have done a few out-and-backs to stay with them on their shorter-distance runs.  This time, though, it would be 10.5 miles out and 10.5 miles back.  The first half of the run is a blur.  We ran, we talked, we laughed.   The miles ticked off and we felt great.  The sun came up a little over an hour after we started our run, and even though it was cloudy we were happy to turn off our headlamps and be able to see the trail. 

We hit Ohio State's campus just before the halfway mark, and ran onto West Campus to get in the extra half-mile.  It was at the same time that I saw the building with several cars parked in front of it that I realized that I *really* needed to use the bathroom.  That building was a beacon of light... almost like there was a neon arrow pointing at it saying, "HEY, there's gonna be flushable toilets in here!"   Super happy mama runner here!  We ran to the building and found a bathroom where we did our business, relishing in the clean toilets, running water, and yes even the automatic paper towel holder.  These are such luxuries during a run, when we haven't even had porta-potties to use over the past few months!  Even better, there was a drinking fountain where we could fill our bottles.  We gave thanks for these small but miraculous fortunes and headed back out to finish what we'd started... but not before we snapped a picture in front of the 'Shoe (OSU's stadium).   It always sends shivers up my spine... I'm a Buckeye for life!

The 10.5 miles back to the Hills didn't go quite as swimmingly as the first half of our run.  The rhythm had been interrupted, and as the miles racked up, Jen's tweaky hamstring started to bug her more and more.  We added some Eminem to our run via Pandora, which pumped us up a bit.  By this point, other runners had started their Saturday long runs, and we welcomed the diversion of the different people on the trail, even chatting with a few as they passed us or we passed them.   The predicted rain finally decided to make its appearance at around mile 18 or so.  Sprinkles were fine, though--we were prepared with hats and water-proof jackets.  We were fortunate that the rain didn't
really start to fall until we had less than a mile to go.  At that point, the parking lot was a truly welcome sight!  A quick selfie (see the inset pic above) and we were on our merry ways, truly proud of each other and what we'd done that morning. What a feeling, to run farther than most people will even drive in a day!   I'm pleased to say that I feel great this morning, thanks in part to wearing my compression socks yesterday.  I still can't believe that I'll be racing in a marathon next month... but I can say that I've definitely trained for it!

Next weekend brings a new challenge for me.  Several moms in the MRTT group are running a half-marathon in Xenia, Ohio (a little over an hour from Columbus).  I signed up for this race before deciding to run the full.  Needless to say, I am not prepared to PR at this race.  I'm a strong believer in tapering, and running 21 miles the week before a race isn't really tapering LOL!  That being said, I am not sure how I could run a race and not... well, race.  Well, I've decided to try something new... I'm gonna be a pacer!  My aforementioned friend Jamie is going for a PR, and I want to help her get there.  So that's my job, and I cannot wait to do it!  We're gunning for around a 2:05... maybe faster ;)  I'm also planning on running 2 miles prior to the race and 2 miles afterwards, so that I can still get in my 17 mile long run for the weekend. I will try to blog about that race in a somewhat timely manner :)

Granville 15-mile Winter Run Race Recap

I honestly don't think I could have scripted yesterday's race any better than it went.  I'm not sure if it was because of the training leading up to the race, the friends who accompanied me, or if the stars just happened to align, but... "everything is awesome!"

 The current movie hit "The Lego Movie",where everything is awesome!

A 1 PM start-time for a race isn't very typical, but I am lucky enough that the half that I ran in November had a 2 PM start, so I had some idea of how to eat pre-race.  I had my customary breakfast (2 scrambled eggs, 2 pieces of toast) at 7:30 AM, and at 9:30 AM I had a bowl of Cheerios.  I had re-read my blog entry about the half, and noticed that I said I probably could've had more to eat, so I made the choice to eat a banana at 11:30, and another one shortly after 12.  I felt great the entire race, fuel-wise, so I think I nailed it on that front.

My running buddy Jen picked me up at 11:15 and we headed out to Granville, which is about 30 minutes east of the city.  We have had so many fun long runs together, and the conversation is always great, so the drive flew by.  The race started and ended at Granville Intermediate School, which was totally awesome because they had the cafeteria open for the runners and spectators prior to the race.  It was a typical (for this winter, at least!) day in central Ohio... snow was falling, and the temps were hovering in the 20's.  As Jen said, it was only fitting for the type of winter that we had... anything but cold and snow would almost seem unfair!

 Random Ohio winter picture... although Granville is this pretty too!

Several of our MRTT pals were also doing this race, which was great.  It was a like a big party prior to the race starting.  We all hung out, hydrated, snacked, and used the restroom several times a piece (another perk of the school being open... indoor bathrooms!).  At around 12:50 we donned our hats/ear warmers/balaclavas and gloves, and headed out to the starting line.  The race itself was a 7.5-mile loop on the roads around the school.  It is a lollipop-shape, where you do half a circle (about 3 miles), then a short 1-mile out-and-back, and then another half-circle back to the start.  There is the choice of a 3-mile, 7.5-mile, or 15 mile race; most of my friends were doing the 15-miler.  

Jess, Tamara, me and Jeanne-Marie (Jen is superstitious about pre-race pics!)

The race started right on time.  Jen, Jeanne-Marie, Tamara and I were at the starting line together, but we all had our headphones on and were in race mode.  I did run side-by-side with Jeanne-Marie for a couple of miles, but soon I was by myself.  I knew what I was in for, since I'd studied the elevation map a bit, and of course Jen had warned me about the hills, but I was still pretty surprised by how quickly they came... and came... and came!  The real hills didn't actually start until around 2 miles in.  Then we hit the "stick" of the lollipop, which was a gradual incline to the turn-around, and a decline back out. 


The course tricks you a bit at that point, with a nice gradual decline for about a mile or so. I took my first GU during this part of the race, just before mile 5.  That was smart, because the real fun begins at around mile 5.5... there was this relatively short hill (only a tenth of a mile) that was steep (28 feet gain), and it was pure slush.  I think it was the hardest part of the race, hands down!  I kept feeling like I was going to fall down, as I had no traction whatsoever... or even just slide down backwards as I ran!  Crazy... once we got past that hill, the next mile-plus was essentially all up-hill.  The "monster hill" was in this part of the race (right before mile marker 6.5), with a gain of 44 feet in just under two-tenths of a mile. Thank goodness we've been doing those weekly hill sessions on Wednesday mornings, because I never would've made it up!

The final mile of the loop was downhill as we headed back towards the school.  I was feeling pretty good at that point.  A few women flew by me, and I called out to them, "Are you doing the 15 mile?"  Of course, none were, which is why they were flying by me... they were finishing their races!  I was very happy with my splits for the first half of the race:

Mile 1: 9:26
Mile 2: 9:21
Mile 3: 9:18
Mile 4: 9:11
Mile 5: 9:07
Mile 6: 9:14 (those darn hills!)
Mile 7: 9:04

I stepped over the finishing pads at almost exactly 1 hour 9 minutes.  This was exactly where I wanted to be, and again, I was feeling pretty awesome at this point.  I knew what was ahead of me, of course, but I realized that most of the runners had stopped after the first loop, and I could tell the runners ahead of me were not in as good of shape as I was. The goal at that point became to see how many people I could pick off.  I'd see someone, focus on them, and as soon as I'd pass them, it was on to the next person.  That is my favorite part of racing... passing people!  I am so glad I took the race out relatively easy, so that I could really race the second half.  The wind picked up during the second half of the race, and it was pretty fierce in the flat areas of the course.... so much so that I commented to two guys who I was passing that I actually preferred the hills!

I took my 2nd GU right after mile 10, as I was approaching the out-and-back part of the race again.  I was excited for this part, as I thought I might see a few of my friends as I was heading back towards the loop.  I really had no clue how anyone was doing.  There were virtually no spectators at this race (I had fun waving to the volunteers, though!), so honestly I was just looking forward to seeing some friendly faces.  I did see Jeanne-Marie just as I was heading back onto the loop, and was able to give her a quick high-five.  I later learned that Jen was right behind her, and Tamara was dealing with some awful stomach issues.  At the time, though, I was so into my race that I couldn't focus on much else.

The annoyingly-slushy hill wasn't any better the second time around (couldn't someone have shoveled it, for crying out loud?  It was only 0.1 miles!), and I was thrilled to be over it.  It was at around that point (mile 13) that I was ready for the race to be DONE. I checked my watch at 13.1 miles and was happen to see that I had ran it in 1:58:50, which is my 2nd-fastest half ever.  I couldn't wait to get to the top of that "monster" hill, though, and look down at the school for the finish!  It was right around here that I was passed by the only person who actually passed me during the entire second loop (I passed 11 people total during that loop... of course, that one person passing me really bugged me!).  I tried to get him during the final two miles, but he had ran a race very similar to mine and just out-kicked me. 

As usual, I was overcome with emotion at the finish.  I choked up immediately upon crossing the finisher pad and the tears started to fall.  I wanted to collapse from sheer pain, but I knew that if I stopped moving, I'd cramp up, so I walked in circles and chatted with the girls at the water/Gatorade table at the finish line.  I really wanted to see my friends finish, but I did get cold waiting.  It was worth it, though... Jeanne-Marie and Jen had a great race to the finish line!  We went inside at that point, and met back up with Tamara and Jess when they came soon thereafter.  

                                                                               Jen and me, post-race (foggy camera!)

Here were my splits for the second half of the race...
Mile 8: 8:58
Mile 9: 8:58
Mile 10: 8:59
Mile 11: 9:03 (mostly uphill)
Mile 12: 8:35 (all downhill)
Mile 13: 8:41 (downhill except for that darn slushy hill at the end of it!)
Mile 14: 8:49 (all uphill)
Mile 15: 8:16 (downhill)

My Garmin time was 2:16:28 for 15.17 miles, which is a 9:00/mile pace.  Officially, I ran a 2:16:24, and placed 46th out of 76 runners (14th out of 28 females, 2nd in my age group--only 6 women though LOL). 

The most disappointing part of the race?  No finishers' bling.  I wasn't expecting a medal or anything, but in past years they always gave everyone a nice mug.  This year: nada.  And only the 1st place finisher in each age group got a prize.  So I walked away with empty hands... almost.  My friend Melanie (another MRTT group member who was running in the 7.5-mile race) had a friend there who represented a local car dealership.  He gave both of us awesome purple windbreaker-type jackets.  They are very cute and I am going to consider it my "finisher's prize" :)

After the race, we skipped out on the soup, got 5-minute massages that were totally, well, awesome!... and then Jen and I headed to a local joint for burgers.  They were not the greatest burgers, but we both would've eaten just about anything at that point.  Running makes you VERY HUNGRY!!! :)  It was fun to chill after the race and rehash everything that had gone down.  I'm lucky to have such a great friend to share it with.  I definitely will do this race again next year.  It makes me feel... awesome :)

Up next on the agenda... it's time to increase my miles!  My first full marathon is just under 9 weeks away, and I need to not only increase my long runs on Sundays, but also dial up my weekday miles.  I'm excited about it, though.  I love training so much more than racing.  No races planned in March, although my son Joey's soccer team might be running in a 5K race, and I will likely run with him if they do.  April will be busy, though, with the Xenia half marathon on 4/6, and then Glass City on 4/27.  Bring it on! :)