5k PR!

Last Saturday I set a 5k PR of 28:17!  Not only that, but I was also the 3rd female finisher in the race!  Ok, so the race was only 40 people at my work family picnic, but it felt good to set a PR in front of my coworkers and family!  My mom even captured the glorious moment:

And here I am up on the podium for the first time ever:

3rd place!

I was most happy about taking almost 7 whole minutes off of my time from this same race last year, when I finished in 35:00.  I can't wait to improve even more for next year!

Women Rock Half Marathon - Race Recap

Jackie's awesome sign (the other side said "Run, Bitches")

I wrote a draft of this post just a few days after the race.  I was waiting to get the pictures back from the finish line before I published it!  So almost two weeks later...

My first half marathon was a humbling experience!  Needless to say, I did not meet my time goal of 2:30, a pace which felt comfortable for me during training.  My official time was 2:50:11, and here are my splits:

1. 10:43
2. 11:03
3. 11:13
4. 11:17
5. 11:48
6. 11:47
7. 13:02
8. 18:11
9. 12:32
10. 12:31
11. 15:40
12. 16:28
13. 12:37

I had to manually type those out because my Garmin refuses to sync with my computer.  Also, I forgot to stop my watch when I crossed the finish line so it shows like 8 minutes for that last .1 mile.

As you can see, the first 6 miles felt great.  My mom and I were sticking to our plan of walking for one minute at each mile marker.  We still managed to stay close to the 2:30 pace group using that strategy for the first half of the race.  Around mile 5, I ate my first Gu (I brought 3 with me for the race and I had planned on eating one every 45 minutes or so).  Around mile 6 I started to feel a little lightheaded and tingly, which I had experienced before during training but I tried to stay positive and keep my pace up.  I was drinking water at every water station, and dumping water over my head to stay cool (even though it wasn't that hot yet).

Excited at the starting line

At mile 7, things suddenly took a turn for the worse.  My stomach just cramped up and I felt super nauseous.  I thought I was going to throw up, so our one minute walk turned into a one-mile walk, to the 8 mile marker.  My mom was talking me through it, but later she said I looked really pale and shaky.  I felt dizzy and lightheaded and my stomach was churning.  Thinking back to the training runs where I felt this bad, I had always been using Gu as my fuel.  I don't think I will be using it anymore, because it seems to have a bad effect on me.  Just drinking U Can seems to work best, but the effects of the U Can seemed to be cancelled out when I used Gu later on.  I wish I had figured all this out prior to the race so I could have had time to come up with a different nutrition strategy!
  For the last five miles, I tried to run as much as I could, but I felt very defeated as the 2:30 pacer got farther and farther ahead of us, until we couldn't see her anymore.  Tons of people were passing us and we did a lot of walking.  Finally, we reached mile 12 and the top of a long hill, and I could see that we were actually going to finish the race.  I spotted Jackie up ahead and we ran up to her and hugged her.  She was waiting for us 1/2 mile from the finish line, and she hopped on the course to run us in!  I have never been happier than when we all crossed that finish line together!

Do I really want to pay $25 for the digital file...probably

After we were done, it took me a good 20 minutes to feel like I could stand up and walk to the post-race party and then back to our hotel without vomiting.  Drinking some disgusting banana-flavored Muscle Milk actually seemed to help.  To get back to our hotel we had to go back up all these stairs from the river, which seemed like the worst sort of cruel and unusual punishment:

Before the race (going down was so much easier)!

During the last several miles of my first half marathon, I was wondering to myself why I had decided the night before to sign up for the Monster Dash half marathon (only 8 weeks away)!  However, a few days later, I am looking forward to my second half marathon, and I hope I can take what I learned from this race and get a much better time!  My legs were only slightly sore the two days after the race, and the only other negative effect was a lot of chafing from my bra.
 The Women Rock race was really fun and the course was nice and well-supported, with lots of spectators.  I had fun staying in St. Paul the night before, hitting up the race expo, and having dinner with my friends.  Although I am disappointed with my time, I am happy to have completed my first half marathon!  I know my legs and lungs are strong enough to carry me for 13.1 miles, and if I can just figure out a better way to fuel, I know I will be able to improve next time!

With a shirtless firefighter at the race expo Friday night!

Me and Anna before the race