Great weekend pretending I was in college still.
Jordan and I left our house at about 7:15 Saturday morning. Not super early (race was at 11am) but I still felt yucky and a little under the weather when Penny woke me up that morning. Throat scratchy, head achey, and just generally miserable. I decided I should wear winter boots, fleecy pants and a hoodie to the half marathon. The worst part was saying good bye to penny for 29 hours (she was going to sleep over my parent's house.) Jordan took this picture of us so I could look at it on my phone....so sad.
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| Goodbye Cuddle |
We were on the road after a stop at BP to get Jordan some coffee. The highlight of this stop was when he spilled about 2 drops of coffee on his hand and let out a blood curdling scream for not apparent reason. The gas station man looked seriously alarmed so we got out of there in a hurry. A little bit much for 7:15 am, Jordan.
The roads in Pittsburgh were snow covered when we left and actually looked really pretty driving. I wondered how bad it would be in Clarion, because throughout college, Clarion's weather was traditionally worse. I texted my best running buddy Kate who is on the team and already up at Cook Forest, and she said there was no snow. Wahooo! I was very grumpy and tired on the drive up and was happy to let Jordan drive, although he was probably not happy I was sleeping the whole trip. I finally awokened when he stopped at the McDonald's in Clarion to get breakfast. The sun was out and there was no rain or snow in sight, it was chillly, but I like that for a race. I took this as a good sign. We set out for the 20 minute ride to Cook Forest, and ventured into no cell phone reception land.
Getting there at 9:50 I had the perfect amount of time to pick up my timing chip, T-shirt, say hi to a couple of friends, and meet Kate for our warm-up. My grumpiness had subsided and I was excited to run. A little nervous about my race tactic (Go out a little harder than usual - maybe all this negative splitting means I go too easy) but I was happy because I was with my friends and husband and would have the rest of the day/night to hang out/relax in Clarion.
The race started at the top of a hill, which was nice, except that meant the last mile of the race was pretty uphill. I was very intimated by this hill because a girl in front of me told me it was horrible. The whole race I was worried about just making it up the hill, which was a waste of my time.
The race conditions were great, about 38 degrees, some sun, no rain. The race started and I was surprised at how spread out we got to be quickly. The first downhill mile there were a good bit of runners around, but by the time we got down to the river a little after mile one I was alone. At mile one, I would realize I pretty much would be running this race alone. I passed people occasionally through this race (10 people after the first two miles, I think) but the majority of the time I was alone. In a way, this is nice - no worrying about people coming up from behind you and passing you, as long as you kept up a good pace. But, sometimes it is easy to lose focus and slow down if you are just out for a run by yourself. I tried to just focus on keeping my Garmin splits around 6:40 and enjoy the river scenery.
The race course itself was pretty flat, with some rolling hills. To prevent bordeom, I used a wide range of distractionary games. One was not increasing the distance between me and the first place girl. Another was eventually passing a guy about 30 seconds down the road. The other was thinking about the race in increments between each water station, and at the turn around, looking at the other runners. That was a particualry nice tactic because a lot of awesome runners cheered for me and told me I was in second. They were so nice.
My splits for the first 8 miles were: 6:32, 6:40, 6:38, 6:40, 6:45, 6:48, 6:45, 6:43. I was happy with how consistent the splits were, because the miles did vary according to the hills in them. I hit the turn around point in 43:46 and I knew I would not try to come back faster overall because of the last mile being hilly. I was aiming to keep up the pace I was running until the hill, and at mile 8, I started to feel very tired. At this point, I had to just keep saying "one more mile..." and keep the distance the same between the girl in first place and I. At least I wasn't really slowing down comparatively. The dread for the hill was also getting me down at this point. Miles 9-12: 6:42, 6:54, 6:44, 6:51.
So the last full mile included two challenging hills. The first one was shorter but very steep, then there was a downhill, then the final hill was not as steep but long. The first hill was torture, I felt like I was barely moving and couldn't recall how long it went for or if there was another steep hill. It was very discouraging running up it and not knowing when it would end. I was thrilled to reach the top, and recovered a bit on the down hill. I was so excited to see my husband on the next hill, who looked genuinely surprised to see me so close to the winner. He ran a little up the hill with me and it felt so much easier. Once I reached the top, the finish was a short downhill away. I crossed the line in 1:29:06 (6:48 pace) and was VERY HAPPY with that time. Jordan was so excited that I got second, which made me even happier. I was 12th overall, which was surprising.
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| Kate and I with our prizes! |
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| Big second place winner |
The rest of the day was spent doing some Clarion favorite things. We ate a late lunch at Vinny's and took a little nap at the hotel. We then wandered around aimlessly as different stores, drove around the campus, and had a late dinner at Cozumel. We had drinks there with my old roomie Lisa and her bf Tom. It was a fun time and I definitly deserved those margaritas.
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| Penny had fun laying in laundry at my parent's |
The next day Kate and I ran an easy 5 miles around Clarion, and it made me miss the old days. Jordan and I ate breakfast, packed up, and headed home with a quick stop at the outlets. A great weekend :) .
