Tuesday, April 3, 2012

WIR- Run the Bluegrass Half Oh those HILLS!!!

I told myself I was going to take it easy all week leading up to this half so I would have well rested legs and easy I did!

Tuesday 3/27- Walk 3mi
Thursday 3/29- Run 3mi 28:51 Walk 3mi
Saturday 3/31- Run the Bluegrass Half


Tuesday my friend Shalan and I walked it was so nice and pleasant. Crazy enough though  my legs hurt guess it was just from doing something different than I was used to! Thursday I decided that maybe I should do at least one little run to remind my legs they were going to be running so Sarah and I went out for 3mi. This was one of the best runs I (we) have had in a while:) We ran and chatted the entire time and our legs felt GREAT!! Guess its where I did nothing all week, LOL! Then I had already told Shalan I would walk with her so that made for a great cool down after the run.

My first priority on race morning was to meet Courtney :)) Oddly enough I text her when we got there told her I was heading to the main barn area walked in the door and we walked right into each other in a sea of people!!
Me & Courtney!!
This girl is SUPER NICE AND FRIENDLY and I so hope to get to meet up with her again!!

Friday night at the packet pick up I was pretty nervous and dreading the Half (mostly for personal reasons)  however I woke up Saturday with a whole different frame of mind, a positive happy it will be what it will be frame of mind. The weather was actually perfect about 55* and cloudy although at times I worried it might begin to rain thankfully it didn't.

Sarah, Me & Shalan
Sarah is a HUGE Ky Basketball fan, she was decked out in her UK stuff:) Go Big Blue!!
Sarah, Shalan and I decided Friday night we was going to do our best to all stay together hoping to give each other the motivation we needed to push through those darn hills. I am very thankful that Sarah and I did one of the practice runs they had on the course to be familiar with it. Sarah asked me was I going to be the pacer for us as we was waiting to begin~ Uhhh me?? a pacer?? That is normally NOT me but I told her I would do my best:)

Only the beginning!
Miles 1 - 3  10:00 9:42  9:17
Did I mention this thing was full of hills and I am a terrible pacer? I just ran how I felt the first huge uphill was right at the mile one point with no down hill after it. I did quite a bit of talking during the entire Half something else I'm usually not to good at, I think instead of the pacer I was the motivator:) as we was going up the hills I would say "Almost there!" As we began mile 3 I had already counted 5 hills and not just small hills~uggh!! I lost count after that!

Miles 4 - 6  10:04  10:14  9:48
Yep I'm not a pacer! Originally we talked about running 2miles at a time then walking .25, around 4.5mile going up yet another huge hill Shalan asked "Are we EVER going to walk?" I just looked at her and smiled and replied "Maybe the next uphill." Unfortunately we was loosing Sarah I kept looking back for her and decided if I saw her I would start walking in hopes she would catch up with us but I couldn't see her so I just tried to keep on with a steady pace. As we approached mile 6 Shalan said she was going to need a walk break and I agreed so once we saw the water stop at mile 6 we grabbed some water and walked to drink it! I was still talking quite a bit a stroller pusher passed us and I said "Hey think we could trade places?" he said "Sure you want to push for a while?" my reply "Ha! No I want in" :)

Miles 7 - 9  11:22  9:52   10:51
These were some TUFF miles but the hills were starting to be more fair meaning they gave down hill after the huge climb up! It was pretty much like a roller coaster ride up and down up and down. This is when we had to begin walking some but we still limited our walking to no more than .25 at a time. Also around 7.5 mile the medic cart came passing by us with Sarah on it!?!?! She yelled at me so I would be sure to see her and was bummed out, she has been having some serious trouble with her foot and it had hit hard:( When I saw her I dropped my arms and said "oh man DANG IT!!" The random lady beside me looked at me funny, I told her that was my friend in the medic cart and then she understood my crazy reaction.  From these miles on we pretty much stayed in the same group of people some of us would walk and then we would run taking turns passing each other.

Miles 10 - 12   11:29  11:22  10:49
Umm yeah I'm not a pacer! Shalan has been having trouble with her hamstrings and they was beginning to bother her. My calves were beginning to scream at me. But we still did a pretty good job at sticking to the only walking .25 although we wasn't running a whole 2miles in between walking. There was still some pretty steep hills during these miles and we both was ready to be DONE!! I never looked at the overall time the entire time so we had no idea what it was. I knew the last mile and a half was fairly even and wanted to try to run that entirely. Right before mile 12 there was one more water station, I hadn't taken any GU's due to being afraid they may upset my stomach but since there was only a little over a mile left I decided to take the one and only one I brought with me since there was water to help wash it down.

Mile 13 - .13   11:11  .54
We pretty much just ran slow until the final turn to the finish line. Then something took over Shalan...that girl took off in a dead sprint!! It was ALL I could do to keep up with her!! My words out loud were "HOLY COW!! I THINK I MIGHT THROW UP!! I'M GOING TO SLOW DOWN!! ARE YOU GOING TO SLOW DOWN!! I MIGHT THROW UP!!" And finally we crossed the finish line:)

The sprinting was beginning! What the heck is that lady doing??? HA!
Overall
I am VERY pleased with my finish time of 2:16:58!! I am VERY pleased in the way we ran the entire half!! I am VERY pleased that this is the first time I have EVER finished with someone I trained with and was able to stay side by side the ENTIRE time:) Even though it wasn't my fastest overall this was an awesome experience!!


Goodness Gracious the walk to the car seemed like forever and miles away!

OMG that was hard! And a hard task of putting on my compression socks afterwards!

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Darn those hills! Thanks for a great, realistic race recap. I really want to do this one next year.

kimert said...

Ahhh hills! Congrats on a great finish. Loved your recap.. and what IS that lady doing, lol!

BabyWeightMyFatAss said...

hills blow!
And the lady looks like she's sucking wind so hard in that pic! or about to hurl.

Suz and Allan said...

Great job on running the entire thing and staying together! I'm pretty sure my mile times were all over the place like that this past Saturday.