the last race of my 20′s

I am hanging out over at Rust Belt Runner today telling you why being a slow runner is sometimes the pits and why I am proud to be a slow runner, no matter what!  Go check me out and then come back for more drivel brilliance!

The first day back at work after a long weekend is always rough; even if all you did over that long weekend is run your third half marathon, have dinner with your best friend at P.F. Chang’s and wash and fold 7 loads of laundry.

Plus the air conditioning is still on at work at it is a fabulous 59* outside right now.  It may be warmer outside than it is in my office today.  So this would be why I am wearing my jacket and my finger-less gloves all day.

The official results are in from the Boy Scout Half Marathon I ran on September 3 and I was right.  I ran the exact same time I did for my first half marathon, 2:45 Except these were two totally different half experiences.

The Glass City Half Marathon was in April and the weather was expected to be 60* as a high but was, instead, 40* as a high making this a chilly mother fucking morning race.  I had just gotten over a sinus infection and I was still very new to running.  I gave myself 8.5 weeks to train for this half and wanted to push myself to finish.  After mile 8 the race started to really get to me.  I took many, many, many walk breaks, my legs constantly had to be stretched out and Michele was constantly pushing me to get to that finish line.  I mentally had hit the wall and HARD.

The Soaring Eagle Boy Scout half Marathon on September 3 was expected to be a high of 75* during the day but was actually in the low 90*’s during the day, UGH. So this morning race was hot and humid mixed with muggy and miserable.  Thankfully there were water stops at almost every mile marker, this was the only reason that people weren’t blacking out and falling into ditches, I think.  For this race I had been running for almost 9 months and I felt mentally and physically prepared.  ’They’ say that you should run 30 seconds to 60 seconds slower PER MILE during races/runs when it is over 80* (some say over 70* even).  If this is the case then I was dead on…I ran my 13 mile training run the Sunday before the race in 2:32 and finished the half in 2:45.  Slower but safer.

So I had the same finish time for both half’s but had different obstacles to overcome during each of them.

I finished 10th out of 11 in my 25-29 age group.  This was the last race of my 20′s…*tear*.  No worries because I have some epic plans for my 30th year!
If this race would have been after September 12th then I would have finished 10th out of 10 in the 30-24 age group.  Ha!
Either way I was one of the last 6 runners to finish the race!
But I finished and I didn’t give up.

Tagged as: 2011, run