Birthday Report

Well the 45th came and went. It's may now, Happy May Day!

And its cold, wet, and windy out. Yawn. Lets just say this, and be done with it. I Didnt do the ride i had hoped bc the windchill was 25 and I am sore from running a race saturday and I didnt want to get cold and wet again. What's new? Not much, i have stopped hoping that i will be warm. I guess it may happen and if it doesnt, well, it doesnt.

Rich did go out and came back looking like he had been skiing. Even with handwarmers his hands were FREEZING with the windchills. He said I sure made the right decision to stay inside on the trainer so he didnt have to hear me whine. Yes he said that :) But its true:)

Birthday Saturday was fun. I cant say I aim to run a half marathon in pouring rain at times, and gusty headwinds at times, and generally miserable conditions, but lets just say I can knock that off the bucket list:) Rich was a trooper and ran the 10k race, and waited for me to come back AS FAST AS I COULD. Then we got out of there and it downpoured again. As we were walking back to the car ( about 1mile away) my toes cramped, my Anterior Tib's cramped and i was wet and chilled.

The Get in GEAR half marathon race? Well not much to tell ya on the race report front but it went something like this.

Arrive at parking spot and sit in car for about 45 minutes thinking maybe it will stop pouring. It sorta does, so we jog over to the race start and still have some time to kill, use the porta potty and then go to the start. The 10k and the half start together so its packed. I ditch my garbage bag and i wait. And it pours again. We wait another 4 minutes and finally the gun goes off and we are off. I take about a minute to get to the start ( its chip timed) and that is ok bc I really didnt warm up too well. Just decided i didnt need to worry about that in the rain, I ran around a bit but i really just kinda tried to stay loose.

Mile 1 8 min

Mile 2 7:15 min

And after that? Well i found a nice groove in the middle there. You see I wore no Garmin, no HR nothing. Just ran by feel. It's a great thing to be able to do that, partly bc it takes the stress out of being tempted to look at a pace, and it helps me run by feel and use my body and my mind as the governor, not some Garmin. I know some of you love your feedback but I got splits at 4 miles and 10 miles, and you know what? Even with the wind and rain and some random hills ( I wouldnt call them hills, more like inclines) I nailed those splits right around 7:30-7:35.

Bingo. My main goal at this half was to run strong, and to run with my form as my guide.

As I said in the "PT section" last week ( haha, Cheryl) I have had a few tweekie things and so my real goal and the hardest one was to leave my EGO At home and to run so i had no pain. I had a few "hello" moments with the lateral hamstring ( ie some pain behind my lateral knee) but i was able to run thru it, adjust my footstrike and power on. But i had a constant battle of " DO NOT CHASE THAT GIRL" going on in my head. I was running my race. ( Damn it!)

Around mile 10 there were 3 girls right near me, they looked quite young ( speaking as an elderly woman) and I just said to myself, " hmm, ok lets just keep them in sight" They were picking it up, I felt good, we had a cross tail wind, and so i just tried to stay with them, maybe 10 feet behind them. There was a guy who had tailed me the entire way down Shepard Road into the head cross wind and i felt all bad A$$ bc nobody wants to draft off me, but this guy was short so i was pretty sure i was giving him some shelter. That is fine. I was running my race, good for him. So it was drafter man and these 3 youngsters and me trying to pick it up at mile 10. Mile 11 came and went, my gels were giving me that good kick and when we hit 12 i just came up behind one of the girls and sat there. We ran across the Ford Bridge together, wind and rain whipping us and we turned down onto the final 1/4 mile and i saw the two other girls ahead of me. There is a short incline to the finish and I just put on the jets and ran right past both the girls. I dont know but I guess if i had a kick that meant i didnt leave it all on the course. But really? I was happy to not have left it all on the course, bc I didnt want to leave my distal hamstring out there too. We quickly got our stuff and headed back to the car and more downpours.

I finished with 1:39 and am super happy with that. As i said i just kept looking at my mile splits on my regular watch and was doing easy math..." mile 8 x 8 min miles = 64. Ok I am below that. that is fine. keep going." I knew when i went thru mile 10 in under 80 minutes ( get it, 8 x 10 = 80?) I was fine and i was around 1:16 so i knew i had some cushion if i neede to slow for form. I did a few times, or for wind gusts, but mostly just kept on plugging away.

As far as birthday excitement....I wanted a spontaneous day! We had a few family and friends visit in the afternoon, I took a bath bc i was so cold and no I really think ice bathes are better bc my legs hurt today, but i needed a warm up not a cool off, and we lounged around. Rich had to go to the hospital bc he is on call, but that gave me time to talk to my sisters and friends and just do nothing. I am most pleased about NOT having to pull out the "It's my birthday and I will cry if i want to" song. I had that all ready to go before the race, but i will save it for next year:)

I had quite an upset stomach most the day but finally I was able to eat sushi for dinner, and some cupcakes and some DQ ( not all at once) and tonight we have another family party where there will be more yummy eats and fun times. We also bought a juicer. I cant wait. If you have good recipes, do share. My only concern is I REALLY HAVE NO problem eating fruits and veggies so i sorta hate to juice them. But if you can convince me otherwise, I Am all ears.

I am not going to post pics of rain and misery, so just believe me. MN and the entire Midwest is not a nice place to be right now. My sister called from Houston last night to say her AC went out and she was so hot and humid. You can guess what i told her. ( In a nice way, of course)

Thanks for reading! And thanks for all the nice birthday wishes. So far 45 years young feels sorta rough! Hope it gets better!!