What went wrong

Sunday was my half marathon. It was not an A race for me (that's reserved for my Olympic tri on July 24); however, I am a very competitive and self-critical person and always want to do my best. Without any consistent speedwork and very few tempo runs, I knew this would not be my fastest HM, but I thought I could do somewhere in the vicinity of 1:57 to 1:58. I would have been satisfied with that.

As always, I started off too far in the back of the pack and spent the first mile and a half weaving around people. After the first two miles (9:26 and 9:18), I knew I was in trouble as far as a decent finishing time, so I decided to just make the best of it. Mile 3 was better -- 9:03, and that included a water stop where I had to pour my own cup because the volunteers weren't ready. Note that the only thing they had was Gatorade. This will become important later in the story.

Mile 4 is where everything blew up. We were in a park on a narrow paved trail. As I was running along and trying to again pick up speed, I fell. And I didn't just fall. I did a full-on Pete Rose dive into second -- flying through the air, parallel to the ground with my arms outstretched. There was a bump in the trail... probably a tree root that had grown under the paved trail and caused it to be uneven. My right foot caught the bump, and I went flying.

All around me I heard gasps and people asking, "Are you OK?" I bounced right back up and kept on running. My first concern was, "Are my clothes torn?" (I really liked the outfit I was wearing. Blue Saucony lightweight running shorts with salmon and white piping on the sides with a salmon Saucony running tank.) My clothes were fine -- covered in gravel, but fine. :)

My second thought was, "Am I bleeding?" I was hoping the answer was yes so I would look like a badass, but alas no blood. Just some road rash on both thighs, the heels of both hands, and my right shin, and a bruise developing on my left shin where it hit the raised part of the trail that had tripped me.

People's comments were really funny. One guy said, "Nice recovery!" Two girls behind me gave me a big "Woo hoo!!!" and one girl told me, "Honestly, you looked really graceful going down. I couldn't have done that as well as you did." :)

I stopped at the next water table, took a cup and poured half of it on both of my hands to wash off the gravel bits, then did the same on my legs. BIG MISTAKE. Where did the water go? DOWN my legs and into my socks. Brilliant. Despite all that, mile 4 was 8:53.

I saw D in mile 5 and stopped to tell him what had happened. Honestly, once I fell I knew my racing day was over. My hands were THROBBING, and my stomach wasn't 100%. I decided to just treat it as a long, hard workout.

Miles 6 and 7 were kind of a blur. I really wanted to stop. My hands hurt, and my stomach was in all sorts of trouble. I'll spare you the details, but suffice it to say I had to duck into the woods for a few minutes. I'm convinced it was due to the few sips of Gatorade I'd had earlier in the race. All that sugar + the humidity + the exertion = really, really bad stomach. Really bad.

To make matters worse, after that happened I felt as though I was completely out of gas. This is the second race in a row where my nutrition played a key role. Clearly, I need to do a better job of pre-race loading.

I was nearly on a death march from miles 8-11. My pace was ridiculously slow (I think mile 11 was 10:10). I could feel a blister on my left foot from when I poured water down my leg and into my sock. My left knee was absolutely killing me. (I think my gait was off, either from the blister or the fall.) It was taking every ounce of willpower to not walk. Right after I passed the Mile 11 marker, I saw a young girl (20ish) walking, and as I came up to her I said, "Come on. Let's go. Let's do this." She started running with me and told me it was her first HM. Her longest training run had been only 6 miles, so I gave her a big pep talk about how she'd crushed her longest run already and how well she was doing. We ran the rest of the way together, picking up and losing a few other women on our way. Her name was Claire. In all honesty, she helped me as much as I may have helped her. Chatting with her and trying to keep her spirits up gave me something to focus on other than my own misery -- the fall, my stomach, my knee, my now awful finish time. Those last 2 miles went by so fast because of her. Thank you, Claire! And congratulations! You ran a half marathon!!!

By my watch, my finish time was 2:04:11. Awful.

So, what went wrong?
- 2 potty breaks
- 1 blister
- really upset stomach
- 1 fall
- poor nutrition (well, not enough nutrition I suppose)
- pain in my knee

What went right?
- I didn't stop running
- I lost a few pounds during training
- My endurance was fine. Better than fine.
- It was fun to see D a few times during the race, and since I wasn't really racing I could slow down (or stop, more accurately) each time and talk to him
- Maybe I helped Claire finish stronger than she would have