Hey guys and happy Tuesday! It feels like a Monday
since it was Memorial Day and our offices were closed yesterday. So as
promised, here is a recap from our weekend of racing.
On Saturday I had my 5k. Like I mentioned earlier,
the race wasn’t until 3pm, So Jake and I dinked around home for a
while, took the pup for a walk and made our way down at 12:30 –
Rochester is about an hour south, but I wanted to get
there early to get my race pack and check out the expo. Jake was able
to pick up his marathon packet too, so it was convenient for both of
us. The expo was pretty small, so it didn’t take us long to walk
through it. I did find some really cute headbands
though so I bought a couple, and wore one for the race.
Even though it was gloomy and rainy for the early
part of the day, it actually cleared up and was fairly sunny for the
race – sprinkled just a little but nothing to major.
So a little before 3 we all lined up, Jake let me
borrow his Garmin ( I really need to get my own) so I got that set, and
set my Pandora on my Ipod to my Aerosmith station – I LOVE classic rock,
and love running to it even more :) We were off! I was
feeling really good, maybe it was the sweet tunes or my new outfit, but I
was shocked when I looked down at the Garmin and saw a 7:45 pace! I
stayed in that general area for about 2 miles, then
it slowly went down to around 8:00, but I was totally OK with it. I
was expecting a 8:30/8:40 pace at best, so this was awesome. The route
was good, a lot more hilly that I was expecting, but it kept it
interesting. When I was coming to the finish I saw
my time on the clock and tried my best to sprint it in.
Official chip time – 24:56, average pace 8:02. I
have NEVER run a 5k that fast before. Considering a few days before my
“practice” one was a lousy 27:00, this was awesome. I felt so great. I
looked at the results and thought I might
have finished near the top, so I wanted to stick around for awards. It
was a good thing I did cause I ended up getting 3rd in my division! I mean, I was just happy to get a medal at the finish, now I have 2 medals :).
I was 38th overall, and was 9th out of 160 women. I would say it was a success, and I’m already looking for my next race so stay tuned!
Sunday was the marathon that J-flow and our buddy
Isaac were running. The weather forecast was for high’s in the 80’s to
90’s (aka. ungodly HOT!) Let me give you a little back story. So about
5 weeks ago J injured his Achilles during
a training run and had to take a good 2 weeks off running. He did some
cross training, but not a lot, then went to Moab to bike, and when he
got back attempted to run a bit, but it wasn’t enough to be fully
prepared. The farthest he ran in the past 5 weeks
was about 5 miles (yikes!). Also, Isaac had tweaked his knee a few
weeks ago, so he also hadn’t been putting in super long miles either.
Needless to say, both were a tad under prepared. They went into it
knowing it wouldn’t be their best, but they still
wanted to give it a go and see if they could finish. My friend Carly
(Isaac's wifey) and I tried to stop along the way to cheer them on, we
saw then at mile 3, 6, 11 – they looked pretty good during those times.
We went to the 21 mile mark and that’s when
things got ugly. We waited and waited and finally saw J come around a
corner – I ran down to where he was and ran a little alongside him.
Carly said that he was looking really pale like it might pass out, and
she’s a nurse, so she knows what she’s talking
about :) I thought he just
looked tired, me = not a nurse. There was a loop they had to take so
mile 21 and 24 were at the same spot. When J came back around he was no
longer running, I walked a bit with him before
we went on his last 2 miles to the finish – he told me later that he
walked his last 2 miles, and had been run/walking since mile 19ish.
Then we were waiting for Isaac to come by 21. He doesn’t do well in the
heat AT ALL. I swear if he could run a race
on North Pole he would probably still be too hot. Anyway, he was about
an hour behind Jake, and it is an understatement to say we were
relieved when we saw him come by. He also told us later, that he walked
the last 6 miles.
After we saw Isaac, we drove to the finish. Both
the guys sucked it up and ran the finish chute but it was painful to
watch and we were glad when they were done – I’m sure they were too. It
was also pretty inspiring to see everyone come
in. I don’t care how many marathons people do, it is still such a big
accomplishment, and for Jake to finish his 1st marathon, and
Isaac his second is just awesome. Isaac immediately said never again,
but I’m pretty sure J-bomb is already planning
his next one – hopefully injury free so he can get his goal of 3:50.
Overall it was a fun and tiring weekend. I might
have caught the running bug, but for now I’ll stick with 5k’s. Not sure
if I have the mental strength to take on a full/half mary, but we’ll
see…
* Edited to add - when I went to get my 3rd place medal, Jeff Galloway was handing them out, I got to shake his hand - pretty cool. If you don't know who he is, get to know him here .
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