Race Report - New Mexico Half Marathon 9/6/09

Pictures have been added as of 9/13/09...see the bottom of this post. Yes, I'm too lazy to try and disburse them throughout.

This started as an early morning after a loooong night. The hubs and I decided to do this race together (as in we would be starting at the same place at the same time and finishing at the same place about an hour apart). The half-marathon starts at 6.30 AM, 13.1 miles from the finish line, requiring that we park at the finish and take buses to the start. No problem, except that it STARTS at 6.30 AM and the LAST bus leaves at 6.05. Since I’m slightly neurotic, I can’t handle the thought of being on the last bus (even though I’m habitually late to everything) so we planned to be there at 5.30. In the morning. Which meant leaving the house at 5.00. In the morning. And waking up at 4.00. In the morning. All of this would have been okay (in another life) if we’d gone to bed and fallen asleep at 8.00 the night before as planned…alas, this did not happen. Somewhere around 11.00 the hubs gave up and asked me if I wanted to give up and go watch an episode of Friends on DVD that we’d just received from Netflix. Needless to say, we spent a portion of our night with Monica, Chandler, Ross, et al, instead of sleeping and the 4.00 alarm came too soon.

Once we parked (at Hotel Albuquerque) and were bussed to the start at Tram

way and I-25, just west of Sandia Casino we had just a few minutes to mill around, talk to friends and do some last minute prep for the race. The start of the race was directly under the I-25 bridge and the first 3 miles descends into a sharp downhill. This sounds great in theory, but luckily I’d been forewarned and managed to keep a slow, gradual pace. At this point I felt a little bit of rubbing on my left foot – like a blister was threatening to come in. I decided to ignore it for the time being, figuring it would just be a little red. At around Mile 6 we turned onto the Bosque Bike Trail, where we spent the next three miles. In reading the reviews of this race (primarily for the full marathon), many people had complaints about running on the trail – primarily because it’s “boring” and because the cyclists are “rude.” Maybe it’s because I run on this trail at least once a week (usually much more often than that) but I normally don’t find it boring. It did get a little monotonous, but again I think it’s because I know each and every tree and crack in the trail. As for rude cyclists, this comes down to rude runners. The trail cannot be closed just because there is a race…therefore, we need to abide by the rules of the trail and either run on the dirt part of the trail or keep to the right. I lost count of the number of runners attempting to run smack in the middle of the paved trail and ignoring the cyclist

s who had right of way. But, that’s a post for another day. From the Bosque Trail we headed down Rio Grande to the finish on Mountain in Old Town Plaza.

I’d gone into this race with 10 miles being my longest run, so I wasn’t really sure what to expect for the last 3. I only had 12 miles on the schedule for this past weekend, so I figured I’d take it really easy, forget about time and do this just for fun. The hubs wanted to do this one, my really good friend was doing this as her first full and I figured I had nothing to lose, so why not sign up. It was like my body knew I only had 12 on the schedule. I kept up with the 5 min/1 min run/walk intervals until 12 miles and then I pretty much shut down. It got really hard…I’m not sure if it was a mental thing or if I hadn’t taken in enough fuel, or what. I’m sure it didn’t help that every time I took a sip of Gatorade my stomach flipped (so I know I didn’t drink enough) or the fact that that little rubbing on my foot at Mile 3 and turned into some major pain by Mile 5. I still managed to run more than I walked for that last mile, but I stopped paying attention to my watch. When I finished, the Garmin said somewhere around 3:10 and a few seconds but the official results say something around 3:15 (thank you, bathroom stop). I’m happy with it.

The course was well marked and incredibly well organized. I had no issues getting water from any of the aid stations, although for once in my life, I was in the middle of the Marathon pack. There were spectators throughout the course and they were always excited and happy to cheer you on. The medals are very unique – handcrafted New Mexican pottery (pics coming) and everyone received one, regardless of which race you participated in (5k, HM or

Marathon). This race is a repeat – probably the full next year. Yeah, ignore that post from a few weeks ago that says something about how I’m not doing a full marathon next year.

Oh, and the major foot pain that started out as a little bit ofrubbing? It turned into a blister the size of a quarter. It was even big enough to earn its own name. :)

Pics above (in order): The hubs, just after finishing, Me finishing, both of us enjoying delicious cookies.