Monday, May 9, 2011

Capital City Half Marathon

I hope everyone had a great mother’s day weekend!  Since I was in Columbus, Ohio and my mom and dad both had to work at the restaurants they own, we moved Mother’s Day to this coming Saturday! 

Speaking of Columbus, I did the Capital City Half Marathon there this past Saturday!  I’ve only done the Rock N’ Roll Chicago Half Marathon (formerly Chicago Distance Classic) so to do another one in another state was a lot of fun!  My goal is to try to do half marathons in as many states as possible (unless I upgrade to full marathons, but let’s not get crazy here!). 

Since I had the flu for two weeks a few weeks ago, I was not anticipating a very good time.  I know I can run but I’m still coughing and mornings are the roughest.  Also, after working out, I have a little trouble with coughing and breathing.  But I just figured that I would at least finish and if I don’t beat my best time, I would try to beat it in Chicago this August.

Guess who got a new personal best half marathon time?  No, come on!  Guess!!  Give up?  Me!  I did!  Having a garmin really helps.  Before, I just tried to judge every mile how I was doing based on the race clock.  But with the garmin, I can keep track of my pace throughout.  I know that definitely helped me to keep going!

I started at a nice and easy pace, around 9:34 mins/mile.  I kept that pace for a few miles.  Then I noticed every mile or every two miles, my pace was slowly slipping (9:40, 9:42, 9:46, 9:50).  As I slowly started to see my pace slipping, I was getting nervous.  I think maybe around mile 8, is was around 9:50.  I hadn’t stopped to walk and didn’t want to stop until at least mile 9 if I didn’t have to.  But I was really feeling tired around mile 8 and when the water station at 8.5 came up, it took everything I had to say, “No, don’t walk yet, wait until the next water station!”  So I did.  The next water station was around mile 9.5.  I decided to take a small water break.  As I started walking with the water, my hip and my knees started to really hurt.  It felt worse to walk than to run.  Well, that did it.  I tossed out the water and started to run.  So I maybe took a 30 second walking break. 

I had set my garmin for a time to do the half no more than 2:15 and therefore, it said what the ultimate pace for that would be (I can’t really remember now).  My previous best time was 2:23:02.  That was in 2009.  In 2010, I missed beating that time by 43 seconds for a final time of 2:23:45.  So I really just wanted to beat 2:23.

Around mile 10, I always get a small second wind.  I just think to myself, “You can do it.  Only 3.1 miles left, that’s a 5k!  You can do a 5k!”

Around mile 11-12, I was really feeling tired (where did the second wind go?).  The space between my shoulder blades was sore.  I’m not sure why.  Maybe I tense up my shoulders?  It doesn’t feel that way though and I try to shake them loose.  There was a rather large hill somewhere between mile 11-12 and I ran up most of that.  Then I decided to take another small walking break and also stretch my shoulders out to try to relieve that pain.  So I took another 30 second walk.  I didn’t want to walk too much because at that point, I was over a 10:00 min/mile pace.  My competitive nature kicked in.  I really wanted to beat my time at this point.  It was almost over!  So I gave it everything I had to finish the run.

And I finished!  My time was 2:14:11 for a final pace of 10:15 mins/mile.  I was thrilled to finish under 2:15!  But I was still a little disappointed with my final pace time!  What is wrong with me!  That’s a great time for me!  Especially with limited training from being sick.

Here is a picture of me before the run and a picture of the finisher’s medal that I got.  I actually like getting the half marathon finisher’s medals!  




Dave, from Columbus, who emailed me last week and was also doing the run beat me by 32 seconds!!  Ha!  That must be one of those walking breaks I took!  Great job Dave!  I didn’t meet up with him during the run.  I hadn’t thought to try to meet up with him probably because I really had no idea what the half in this town would be like.  The thought just never crossed my mind!  Maybe next time Dave!  You can do a half out my way!  Haha!

I did take the normal “post-run nap”.  My knees were starting to hurt and my bad toe was hurting.  An hour nap seemed like just the thing.  You would think that I would have taken it easy the rest of the day but nope!  My nephew wanted me to meet his girlfriend, so we went bowling that night!  A new pain crept up too!  The crease at the top of my leg started to hurt!  That was a new one!  My nephew kept calling me an “old lady” when I would walk up and down the stairs!

Sunday, I was feeling much better.  I did have a 5.5 hour drive to get home that night too.  But before that, my nephew and I hit the mini-golf and batting cages!  (Yes, I’m crazy!).  It was an action packed weekend!  Since I don’t see him that often anymore, I like to spend as much time doing stuff with him as possible.  I got the mini-golf game for me free because it was mother’s day and mother’s play free.  What?  I’m not a mother?  Sssshhh!!!  Here’s a picture of us after playing mini-golf.



It did kind of start getting annoying when everyone was wishing me a happy mother’s day, including the guy at the gas station because I was with my nephew.  I mean, he is 16!  How old do I look anyway!  J

I left around 5:10 pm and made good time going home.  I arrived home around 9:30 pm (excellent!!).  And as I opened my front door and stepped inside…I froze!

My…my…uh…what???  My living room was spotless!  And my kitchen was too!  I didn’t move from the front door for like 5 minutes!  Then I smelled something unusual!  I flipped on the light and my living room was completely painted!  Now, I painted 80% of one wall about a month ago, never to pick up the brush again!  Hey, it’s a lot of work!  And I got sick.  And I’m lazy! 

My cousin Jessie, her husband Nick (aka Anonymous on here), and their friend Stuart came over to my house since they have my key, took pity on my poor soul and worked their butts off!!  Living room and kitchen were cleaned, tv was mounted on the wall (which I heard was a huge project and therefore, I must love it!), and the living room was painted! 

I think I have the best family ever!  Really!!  Thanks again guys.  My house was a huge pigsty!  I’m a little embarrassed they dug through that mess!  But I’m so so so so grateful!  I shall keep it clean (and buy more paint to put a second coat on and paint the hallway!)  I promise!


5 comments:

  1. Anonymous5/09/2011

    Congrats on the PR and I'm glad you had fun with your nephew :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Great job and nice post....

    Regarding your shoulder blades, mine do that too. I think its because when you get tired, your form starts to slouch (at least that's for me)
    You probably didn't think about meeting up since the thought of some stranger creeped you out teehee :-)
    So does this mean you are going to get sick more often, since you ran so well?? ok, just kidding....

    Glad you had fun and made it back safe...

    ReplyDelete
  3. Way to go Amanda!!! You rock! That's an awesome PR! You should be super proud of yourself!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks guys!

    Dave - I'd probably be safe since I'd be surrounded by thousands of people!! And I think running a half in May when it's cooler as opposed to my usual August when it's around 80 might have something to do with running better. I've only ran the half in August! lol

    ReplyDelete
  5. Great job!I have only managed to be able to do 1 minute intervals so far. Way to go!

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.