Annnyway. Easiest race recap ever. Ya ready?
The more detailed version goes like this:
Lined up in the endzone of the field at Kenan Stadium, UNC-Chapel Hill (better known to everyone outside of NC as just plain "Carolina"), behind the 10:30 pace group sign. My goal was 11 min miles. Ran into a few people I knew and had last seen at the NC Half in Charlotte, which made me feel slightly less alone! I tried to ignore the people lined up behind me talking about hos compression gear was all a placebo effect, as I had my fancy hot pink compression sleeves on my shins :( Listened to Meb give some inspirational advice, and then, we were off!...sort of. I had to travel the from my endzone to the other one, around, and halfway back down the field before I hit the start line. It was quite an antsy while, which you'll see in my chip vs. gun times.
The course was pretty, well laid out, tons of volunteers making sure you were going the right place, and many chances to see other runners. For one part of it, the 2nd loop around was 2 lanes of the street and the slower first loop around was the other half of the street. I had to keep reminding myself to run MY race and also not get distracted looking at the form of the faster runners.
Water breaks were at the 2, 6 and 8 mile marks, with Gu at the last one. I made the mistake of taking the Gu last, so the last taste I had in my mouth was the vanilla bean Gu, which is a good taste, but I had to climb an evil hill- no really, they do a split time of just that 1 mile stretch because the hill is *that* evil- and finding water after the finish line was like hunting it in the Sahara sooo I should've rethought that strategy. Or they should've had the Gu lady first, not last at the station.
Anyway, I almost stopped at 3 miles in. Not because I hurt, but because a family member I haven't talked to in nearly 3 years called. Other people had been keeping me in the loop, but still, to get the call directly from them was enough to make me break down in tears on the side of the course. I read the Google Voice transcript of their voicemail and had this moment of "what the crap do I do?!" I could've walked back to the stadium, but the more I breathed and thought logically, the less good I figured that would do. I had trained for 10 miles, knew I had it in me, and I'm pretty sure that the way I will deal with this news is running, so might as well get used to it now. Besides, there was nothing I could do, so I might as well just keep running. Yes, the irony of getting a phone call 3 miles into a race that raises money for a cancer research center from someone calling to tell you they're dying of cancer.
I cried, a lot, and pretty sure between my already red-hot face, sunglasses, and my location solidly in the 2nd half of runners, people just thought I was tired and injured. What hurt first, however, were my hips. Just like in my half, I was super excited that what came to my "um...ow?!" senses first wasn't my shins or my knees. My shins felt fine and my knees weren't painfree, but whatever. There were hills, if I haven't mentioned that yet, and some of them were steep mofos, so I don't blame the hip flexors for hurting first. Later that day, my glutes would also scream their "hey, remember us?!?!" message :/
Where am I in this seemingly meandering race recap? Uh, how about if I just get to the end. I was running 10:30 miles until I hit the hill, and I just didn't have the mental focus to keep running, no matter how slow. Only a few short walk breaks, but dang, that killed my pace. My clock time had me doing 11:41 miles, but chip time was better than that :) You can see just how flipping long it took to actually start!
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| 1:56 is my gun time, 1:47 is my chip time, 10:47 is my pace. First 2 numbers are start and end of the eeeevil hill! |
I wasn't the happiest camper at the finish line. There was a pause in handing out the medals, so I had to wait on the field surrounded by other recent finishers, no water, no liquid refreshment, and seeing medals finally getting handed out halfway up the stairs with people completely oblivious to the horde waiting for them to MOOOOOOVE below. When I finally got my medal, I was still ready to strangle every volunteer who HADN'T run up Laurel Hill since the last time they had water and told me "oh its not very far"... If I can pass 2 tents of volunteers between you and the water, don't lie to me!
Good race, don't know if I'll do it again, just because its a weird distance, I detest Chapel Hill and UNC especially (hazards of being a State alum) and that hill is nothing but evil.
Here's to the next TV timeout!
-Syd
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