I have been trying to do everything right for this race. I followed a solid training plan, stayed injury free, ate right, hydrated properly and even got a good night of sleep before race day.
So here's a quick breakdown of the day
Pre-race prep: all done the day before, number on my favorite Oiselle tank, gels in my spibelt, etc.
Alarm set for 3 pm: Wake up at 3:11 am good thing since I had the alarm on pm. That would have just sucked to oversleep your race.On the road at 4:15am: to met up with my chicas as we were carpooling down to Cincinnati from Dayton
Traveling: oops forgot directions for parking, call hubby and have him send a picture of the directions since the website was being difficult.
Parking: right next to Paul Brown stadium
Bag check: first school bus we walk by is the right bus for my bib number.
Waiting time: Inside the stadium, woman's bathroom without a line? What?!
Walk to the start line: hardly 100 m away, no problems
The race:
1: trying to find my happy place and pace of 8:30
2: Yikes 7:57 pace, slow down chica.
3-5: keeping close to my pace, Best days of My life comes on as I run down mile 5 with tons of people, it was surreal.
6-8: Hills, knew about those, slowed my pace, looked for my friend from HS who is about half way up the "big one". Found her, jolt of energy.
8-9: Always forget about this section of the course after the beautiful vista of the Ohio River.
10-13: zoned out, the half had split and I found myself on my own a bit. My mile splits were off enough that I always missed them by the time I saw the mile clock on the course. Running by feel I guess.
13.1: 1:50 feeling good.
13-15: hung out with the 3:40 pace group (mostly men). This was my BQ time so tried to stay there. Until we turned a corner and found a little but steep hill. My quads were not having it. Slowed down, then said F it and walked the last 15 feet or so.16: was a turnaround, so I could see runners ahead of me. This was the longest run I did in training so every after this was untested.
17-20: zoned out, there was a portion on the bike path which had HOPE written out, honestly don't know what I was thinking here.
21-25: These hurt, I was hot, the sun was out, no one really around me too much, I was timing my gel intake because I knew I was needing the energy. I could see the Great American building further down the river but it looked so far away yet, that's were the finish line was. Mile 21 the 3:45 pace group passed me. There goes my training pace...
26: who put that hill there, it's not much but I wanted to cry when i saw the rise in the road, then my music shuffled and I got the Olympic theme song going, the streets are lined with people and I just gave it what I could. Anyone else use the Olympic theme in their race mix? It never fails to give me a lift when I need it.
Finish: 3:48:19. PR by 28 minutes. I'm super happy with my time and my place top 8% of all woman in the race.
Post race: No Gatorade what was up with that? I didn't drink it on the course because my gels have electrolytes in them so I only drank water but I was so sick of water! I ended drinking the syrup out of the free fruit cups they gave out. There was plenty of junk food after but I didn't have the stomach for it and I was amazed to see how many people were just piling up the food to take with them. Finally got out of the finisher's area and found my boys and hubby.
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| my cheering crew, a bit tired after being in the sun and getting up early! |
my time considering the hills on this course. The volunteers (Grunts) were amazing and all the crowd support was fabulous. I will do this race again but I'm not sure when...
P.S. Love, love, love the finishing medals this year!
Stats:
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