We had a great weekend in Nola for the Rock N Roll Marathon. Saturday at the Expo, I got to meet my coaches, Stephanie and Ben Bruce , and I learned even more about them while listening to their interviews on stage. Stephanie spoke a lot about what it is like being a pro runner while being "with child" as the British interviewer, who was hilarious and a fantastic host, kept saying. Ben spoke a lot on how this was going to be his debut marathon while they both shared what it is like to be married to each other as they are both pro runners. It was all very interesting and so good to see their personalities as well as personally meet them, of course.
Race day:
I was running (since I am not in race shape to race... my pride MUST add), and my former college teammate, Emily, was running the full. She's all into the long, slow and adventurous races and is training for a 50k trail race in the summer. We stayed with our other former teammate and best friend, Taylor, and her family like we do every year whether we are racing this race or the Crescent City Classic 10k. However, this year, they now live on the north shore which is about 50 min's away from the city, so we had to wake up at 4 am !!! That's fine with Emily and me because we probably would have woken up around that time anyways, but poor Taylor had to, too, since she basically just drove us around and was the most awesome friend ever for the weekend. It was foggy, humid and misting the hour leading up to the race, but we were ready to just go have fun. Emily and I reminded each other that this was just a stepping stone in our training and to have fun as we left each other for our separate starting corrals.
Race Recap:
My race strategy was supposed to be: Start out over 7:00 pace for sure since I am so used to going out in 6:45 or so for a half marathon and that meant at least 7:10. I was going to keep a comfortable pace until the turn around at 4.5 miles, then pick it up about 10 seconds per mile pace. The last 5k I was to be going hard and negative splitting even more. This is called a Progression Run.
What really happened was: It was nasty out there, and I kept slipping all over the place. There's nothing like trying to run fast when you are about to face plant! I kept telling myself to be comfortable and that this is not a race which was TRUE, but that doesn't help you pick it up either. I was not feeling good though and pretty much positive split the entire way until the last 5k. This is still O.K. for a training run because it teaches me to push and hang on when I am tired. I know that if I would've been home and run this pace for a progression run, I would've been pleased. However, when you are getting passed the entire time, when that normally does not happen, and your glutes hurt so bad you can barely pick up your legs, you don't feel good about it. This half was slower than my very first half marathon EVER which was before I joined the college team. Ha... that puts it into perspective. I am moving on though knowing that I have only been doing workouts for ONE MONTH, and it is not realistic for me to run any faster right now--race or progression run or whatever. The difference is, I never entered a race this early into my training, so I have never experienced such public shame to what shape I am in and how far I have to go to improve. The only reason I did this was because I had free entry, and it was a weekend to take with the girls. I am Moving on.... !!! :) Big things will come with hard work.
Ben won the Marathon, of course! It was great to cheer him on while I was cooling down. The good thing is, the wind and humidity won't get much worse for his marathons in the future.
Sorry we didn't take any pictures. Emily and I have only run in a thousand races, so we don't think to document them all. :)
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