I survived! A report!

I'm officially a half marathoner and I even have the medal to prove it...and as soon as I can meet up with my mom, I'll have some pics too. Wow, what a day. Not at all what I expected, but I am wiped the crap out.

I met up with the Albuquerque Fit Marathon Group for a 5 mile "warm up" run at 5.00 this morning, which required a 3.00AM wake-up to eat some oatmeal and a banana (don't worry, I fell back asleep for another hour, which is probably the best sleep I got all night). It was dark and cold when we met up and very, very different, but nice all the same. I ran with Coach T (who rocks...I can't ever get over how much she rocks) and we originally decided to do 4 miles and then do a 1 mile cool-down after the race...we ended up doing closer to 4.5 though. It was so weird being out running along Paseo and in the Bosque at that hour...it was so quiet and deserted. All you could see was a little bundle of bouncing lights ahead of us thanks to everyone's headlamps (damn! I forgot a pic of my super cool headlamp straped to my head for you all!). Anyway, we finished the 4.5 and got to hang out for an hour till the race started...not ideal, but what can you do?

So, on to the race...or, as I prefer to call it, the "super organized training run with bling at the end" because, as I stated earlier, THIS IS ONLY A TRAINING RUN. And I ran it as such...nice and slow. Miles 1-3 were a blur and went by pretty quick. I set up my watch to run 6 min running/2 min walking intervals, so I can't tell you what my pace was...it was really, really, really slow though. At 4 I took a Gu and was still feeling good. At 6 we saw Mike and Frank on their bikes and we made our way off Rio Grande and onto the Bosque path. Mike filled up my bottles and we kept on going.

At 9 things started to get a little hard. I'd had to make a quick "run into the trees stop" so I ran harder to catch up to my friend, D, and I think that hurt me. Plus, my shoes should have been replaced a while ago (I bought new ones Friday, but I'm not wearing new shoes on an 18 mile run!) so my foot was hurting pretty bad too. D was having her own issues and we decided to split apart. I took off just barely ahead of her, but thank god I was nearby...sure enough, the water stop at Mile 10 was gone. Fin. No more. Mike and Frank were riding slowly next to me and I knew D needed more water, so luckily they were able to re-fill her...I'm pretty unimpressed though. The sponsors of this race were responsible for the water on our 16 mile run a few weeks ago too (the ones that didn't show). Not sure what the deal was, but still....I hope there was a good reason because there were a few people behind us too. Anyway, Mile 12 was the longest. mile. EVER. Ever ever ever ever. It never ended. At this point, I'd abandoned my 6 min/2 min intervals (my foot was killing me) was was doing more like 5 min/3 min intervals. Near the end Coach D saw me coming in and ran next to me. Poor thing, I know she was talking to me, but I had my headphones on so loud and couldn't spare the energy to take them out to hear her. Once I got to the straightway for the finish line BAM! I had energy and then some! Headphones came out and I swear I was running a 4 minute pace. I crossed the line at a slow 3:09:44...Not good, but not as bad as it could have been, especially considering our early morning "warm up."

So, yeah...I've actually run a race now. It was pretty quiet and lonely on the course and I'm so happy I'm not running Duke City as my first full marathon now. I've heard good things about Denver's crowd support and I'm excited about it...nervous because I can't imagine going out and running another 8 miles right now, but super excited too. I'm also thinking that with better crowd support and maybe sticking with my 1 mile/1 minute intervals (or maybe 5 min/1 min...something to try on our 4 hour run in a few weeks) I should be okay with Denver's 6 hour cut off. I've already suffered my 20 minutes in an ice bath and now I'm debating either finding some food or taking a nap...tough choice. Think the nap's gonna win, but mostly because my foot is still bothering me. But first, those stupid shoes are going to find their way to the trash can.