Hydrate or Die

I'm home- and still alive. I finished! 13.1 miles under my belt. And it was so much fun! I know that's crazy, but it was. The first thing I said when I crossed the finish line was, "so, St. Jude in December?" There are always things that I could have done differently. I could have trained better. I could have actually followed the training plan. I could have eaten better and hydrated more. There were probably times I could have pushed myself harder, and maybe times when I should have held back some. But overall, it was amazing! It still doesn't seem real that I did it.

The course was pretty flat and straight and the scenery was great which made it a lot of fun. It started in Seaside (at the post office) and we ran down 30A through Watercolor, Santa Rosa, and Grayton Beach and then turned around and came back. Some people didn't like the turn around thing, but Sally and I had trained our long runs on the greenline and so it was actually nice for us. The race started at 7 on Sunday morning. The weather predicted thunderstorms all day Saturday and Sunday. It rained overnight on Saturday but the sky was clear on Sunday morning. The rain cooled it down some and it was about 50 degrees-perfect for the race! So those of you who know me at all know that I don't really do music, but my mom let me borrow her ipod in case I wanted to use it. When I told Sally the morning of the race, she laughed at me. We hadn't been training with music the whole time so I left it behind. There were people along the course that had their cars pulled up with music playing and one man that had set up a table with speakers outside his story. And the music really did give me an extra burst of energy and motivation so maybe next race I'll try listening to music (with only one earbud of course!) Maybe not, we'll see. Sally and I pretty much talked the whole time (which probably means that we could have pushed ourselves harder, but oh well). I got tired at about mile 10 or 11--not like hit a wall, I'm about to die, I can't go anymore. Just tired. So then I start talking to Sally about it because I'm trying to figure out what part of me is tired, but she tells me that we can't talk about being tired for another 2 miles so we keep running. FYI I decided it was my muscles that were tired. My lungs were still doing okay.

So fun times on the course... during the MRTC Winter Cross Country Series I looked like I wanted to die in the pictures, so for the half marathon whenever I saw a camera I ran really big with a huge, cheesy smile plastered on my face. Here are some action shots. And here are some of the pictures that I took...

Packet pickup!

My number: 2706

Before the race. Ready to go!

And after! Notice the Vera Bradley totes!

And this is pretty much how Sally and I spent the rest of the day after the race

Other fun things on the race: high-fiving Katie Wertz as she breezed passed me (By the time she went to register, the race was full so she just ran it for fun. She's just that hardcore!), cheering for Diana as she passed, singing and dancing as we passed all the music stations, making friends with other racers and encouraging each other along the way, passing--and beating--the three runners that we ran alongside the entire race, belting out "O-o we're halfway there. O-o living on a prayer!" as I leaped through the turn around, and listening to other runners conversations. My favorite was a husband and wife around mile 8 or 9. Husband to wife, "How are you feeling? Do you need some goo?" Wife's reply: "No. I need some oxygen!" Hilarious!

On that note, here are some of my favorite shirts seen during the race:
- Run Pretty
- In my mind, I'm a Kenyan
- We run hard so we can party hard!
- If you find me on the ground, drag my body across the finish line
- I thought you said this was 1.31 miles!
- Let's go out slow and taper
- That's not sweat. It's your fat cells crying

So now I'm taking a little break from running--at least long distance running. I think there are four 5Ks in April that I'm interested in doing. Now I'm trying to decide on what I want to do next. It's between Crossfit and P90X. Any suggestions?