Time for a classic, long, bloggy race report largely built around a series of pictures...
1. Here are all the things I planned to wear and/or take with me on race day laid out on a chair in the motel room the night before. I was really pleased with all my wardrobe choices. Although I took obvious care with color-coordination and even ironed the SOuLE MARKS logo onto the thigh of my capris, I was very careful to choose comfort and practicality. I had the track jacket and a pair of long pants on in the am and post-race but was very happy that I chose a loose-fitting, long-sleeved shirt and capris to run in. The weather was fabulous--cool and slightly breezy, sunny but not glaringly so..just perfect. There were thunder storms saturday afternoon and evening, but not a drop during the race.
2. Here is Alan ready to go. Across the little pond you can see the crowd of runners forming at the starting line. I found a picture online taken from the start, and I think you can see Alan standing here very tiny in the background.
3. And here I am in the same spot, sporting my froggy greenness. At this point, I determined that there was no sense pretending I could get through the lengthy port-a-potty line (just behind the camera), so we gave up and headed to the start. I wasn't desperate and figured I'd take a pit-stop at the aid station around mile 3 or so. Emilie always cries after a big race; I get choked up at the start. The combination of nerves and excitement and starting line pomp gets me all verklempt, but other than that I was feeling good. I saw a woman who looked exactly the way I felt at the start of the MDI Half: she was visibly teary, looked exhausted and was hovering near a tall, supportive-looking fellow. I don't know what ailed her but I felt sooooo sympathetic. It made me realize how incredibly lucky I was to just feel normal.
4. This is the part for which there are no pictures (unless I eventually find some on the web).
The horn blew and we mosied our way to the starting line for about a minute and then we ran.
We ran along the bodacious curves of Letter S Road (actual name) and into the center of Alton.
Alan ran with his music on (they changed the rules on that about a week before the race, much to his relief);
I ran music-free for a while, enjoying the spectators and thanking the volunteers holding traffic for us.
Alan cautioned me to watch my speed--I was keeping pace with him--but I felt good.
A mile and a half in, we ran past the finish line (ready and waiting for our return),
and a bank of port-a-potties (which I ignored).
We ran past our motel and I had no desire to stop for a nap.
We ran past a giant billboard that said "Got Pain?" and I fished out my cell phone and managed to find the camera function and take an almost passable photo while still running and keeping pace with Alan.
I finally put one earbud in and settled in to listen to some music.
I started wondering where we'd seen that pit stop when we drove the course the night before. I was quite convinced it was before the long steep climb and when we hit a nice downhill stretch I pulled ahead, figuring I'd be taking a break soon.
5. This is the view from the Scenic Overlook (around mile 5 I think--we took the picture the night before). By the time I got here I was chatting with a girl named Daija and feeling A. amazed to still be running non-stop particularly since you have to go UP to reach a view like this, and B. like, where in the world is that pit stop anyway??
6. [A few more photo-free segments here] I finally found the pit stop just before mile 6 (waaaay further out than I thought it would be) and lost several minutes standing in line for it. I made good use of the time, though, stretching, refueling (dried cherries, dark chocolate covered almonds, cashews and M&Ms) and sucking down lots of water (no reason not to when you're about to pee anyway). Alan blew past me while I was in line and I watched him pull farther and farther ahead and disappear around a bend.
7. Back on the road, I hit the turn at the top of the loop that told me I was about half way through and brought me back down to lake level. The downhills were a little tricky--I felt like a runaway tractor trailer desperately trying to brake--but then the course was weaving and winding past gorgeous homes, in shady lanes, with many ups and downs. I tried to keep myself chugging along, hoping to be not too far behind Alan by the end, but I didn't have the momentum any more to run non-stop. Every now and then another water stop would come along, most with music, some with people in funny costumes, all with smiling friendly volunteers. They all made me feel like a million bucks even though they didn't know me. A barbershop quartet even sang to me about being 16 (my bib number). I didn't need water thanks to my Camelbak, but I took Gatorade at every chance. This is noteworthy because I hate the stuff: I can only stand it during races.
8. Around 2 hours in, I decided that it would be prudent to refuel some more, so I pulled out a free Gu-like thing that came in Alan's goody bag. It was strawberry-banana flavored and reeeeally thick. I purposely started sucking on it between water stops so I wouldn't be tempted just to ditch it in the nearest trash can. This was wise. When I finally told myself to imagine it as mashed bananas it made more sense to my palate and wasn't so bad. I think it helped, but can't be sure.
9. By this time, I felt like I'd done an awful lot of walking, and I was quite certain that Alan was approaching the finish line well ahead of me. On the other hand, I thought maybe I'd kept the walking breaks pretty short because my time was looking good. My general goal was to do better than MDI which was 3 hours and 13 minutes and I really wanted to break 3 hours. My estimates made that look very attainable, but the longer I've been running, the less I trust my math.
10. And then something strange happened: I turned a corner and was starting up a kind of fierce little hill when I looked up and saw a familiar figure. There was Alan not far ahead of me! I said something like "Holy
&@#$! that's my husband!" to no one in particular, and then I got me some motivation. I caught up to him about 2.5 miles from the finish and we stayed together until the end. I really hope that somewhere there's a picture of the two of us crossing the finish line hand in hand. We were very much together but apparently my bib (attached to my belly--no comments please!) crossed the line before his (attached to his thigh) because the official results put me one second ahead. We weren't announced by the guy with the mike by the finish line chute because another guy was using the PA system to give out the age-group awards somewhere nearby. But as I said in my previous post, that's OK; we were there for us. Our net times were 2:46:56 and 2:46:57. That put Alan about the same as MDI and gave me a PR of about 26 minutes. I'll take it!
11. Post-race, we drank lots of water and wandered through the food line and then got in line for massages. We probably spent 45 minutes in that line, but it didn't matter. We had ice cream. Homemade. With chocolate sauce. And various other foods. Our medals and tech tees are awesome and colorful and everything was really well organized from online registration right through bag pick-up. There was supposed to be a chance to vote for your favorite water-stop in the "Big Lake Battle" but we never saw anything about that and Alan said the pizza wasn't very good (I opted for a bagel and cream cheese) but neither was a big deal. And I made friends with a great gal named Lucy who kindly took our picture.
See how happy we are to have made it into the massage tent?
This lady gave a great massage AND she hammed it up for the photo op!
12. Back at the motel, I realized we didn't have a good picture of our logo-bedecked thighs. Alan's was on a scrap of fabric pinned to his shorts and mine is ironed right onto my capris (I scorched it a little in the process). I did so well these last two races, since the inauguration of the logo, that I think I'm going to have to be superstitious about it.
Anyway, nice job, legs (all four of you!).
