Saturday, February 11, 2012

Outside The Ice Half Marathon - Race Report

Oh man, I totally slept in this morning! I set my alarm for 6am, but I guess I never turned it on. The awesome thing was that I was able to sleep in. George slept all night, and so did I! It was so nice. He had gotten back into the habit of nursing a couple times during the night because he got sick and I got soft. Finally, the night before last, we decided to have him cry it out again. He cried for over an hour before going back to sleep so I was ready for a repeat of that last night, especially since he's got a cough, so I was happily surprised when I suddenly woke up at 6:30!

I was also really happy that I hadn't woken up any later since I had agreed to pick Amber and Cheryl up at 7 for the race! Yikes, I got ready in a hurry, and just grabbed a Larabar for breakfast on the way.

This race was at the Olympic Oval. It's inside, and there's an ice rink inside the track where the olympic speed skaters practice. It was interesting to see the different things they do to train.

All that rush and stress, and we got there with about an hour to spare so we just hung out, and took advantage of their nice restroom a couple times. Way nicer than your usual race port-a-potties! :)


I had made a playlist just for this half marathon that started out with the kind of slower songs, then had the fast songs in the second half. It was a 2.1 hour long playlist and I was excited to listen to it and try to pace myself with it, and hopefully not have it loop.


But when I started out, the music there and everything else going on was too loud so I could hardly hear my music. I could have turned it up really loud, but that seemed kind of silly since their music was pretty good anyway. So I just took my ipod off and put it with our stuff.

As usual, it took me a while to get warmed up and feeling good. After about half an hour, I passed Amber and Cheryl for the first time, and I was starting to feel really good and getting into a good rhythm. I told myself that I'd stop and get something at the aid station at 40 minutes, but I was just didn't want to stop so I put it off until about 50 minutes.

I really wish I would have remembered my own gel or shot blocks because they just had bananas, oranges and trail mix (what?). I grabbed a piece of banana, and it seemed like it took me forever to peal. Then it seemed like it took me forever to eat because it wasn't ripe at all. It hardly even tasted like a banana, and I had to chew it a lot! I was a little worried it would make me sick, but it was ok.

The track is 442 meters, so a half marathon is 47 3/4 laps. They had us start on the far side of the track, and I started counting laps when I first hit the timing mat. I guess I should have waited until next time around, though, because when I thought I was at 24, they told me I was on 23.

That was at about an hour in, and since I hadn't done 23 laps, I knew my goal to finish in 2 hours was probably not going to happen. It was hard because I didn't know my pace, and I never did the math to figure out how fast my laps needed to be to make 2 hours! Too bad I'm not smart enough to do that in my head while I'm running! Anyway, I was still hopeful that I'd make it because I had started out slow and was running faster now. The music seemed to have turned down now too, so I grabbed my ipod and fast forwarded to the fast songs.

At around 1:30, I was wanting some more energy, wishing they had just chocolate instead of trail mix (I didn't feel like eating nuts, and I don't like raisins) when I realized I could just grab the trail mix and pick out the M&Ms! So I did that, and that was nice. Next time around I grabbed some water to wash it down. Who knows how much energy it gave me, but I was able to keep going. I also stopped and grabbed an orange slice at one point, and that was really good, but it got all in my teeth! Haha

When I got to what I thought was 43, I heard them announce that I was on 42. I was like, "What!?" But I just kept going - 5 laps to go!

Then my left knee started hurting! Dang it! I tried to really run through it, ignore the pain, and keep pushing. I had a few slower laps, but I was able to push it hard at the end.

I felt good pretty much the whole time and ran at a pretty steady pace, averaging about 2:40 a lap until those last few. I felt good about it, but it wasn't fast enough to finish in 2 hours. It's hard running on flat for that long! I was really longing for some nice downhills to help my time out!


I did not love my time, but I may have done one lap too many. We'll see when they go over the times and fix any mistakes. Fingers crossed! :)

Amber and Cheryl were about 10 laps behind me when I finished so I just stretched for a few minutes and had some more M&Ms -uh, I mean trail mix, and water. They did great, I can't remember what time they finished in, but it was their first half marathon and they both finished strong!


I was so glad they came with me. It's so fun to have friends that run now! Afterwards we went to Apollo Burger and got way too much food! (Don't worry, I didn't eat all those onion rings, or all the shake)


My legs, and mostly my knees are pretty sore tonight. I'm sitting here icing them with my feet up. I'm excited to say I did a half marathon today, when I hadn't even planned on it 2 months ago! It was a great training run, and it was good to see how fast I could do a totally flat half marathon which is kind of reminiscent of Utah Half so that's good!

When the race results came in a few days later, I found out that I WON MY AGE GROUP! Oh yeah! That's the awesome thing about small races! :)

Also, looking at my Garmin data, I did run an extra lap. So I ran 13.37 miles which brings my pace up to 10:10 min/mile average.

1 comment:

  1. I love the foods, thanks for sharing. Congratulations to all the participants for a great job well done and looking forward always for more updates.

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