Utah Valley Half Marathon race recap

I think by now it should be fairly obvious that I have a mental illness that makes me pay money to wake up at an obscene hour and run 13.1 miles. Whatever, I'm pretty sure they don't have therapy for that, except physical therapy :)

Well, I can honestly say this was one of my worst races, and it was kind of a combination of several things that made it so.

First, we had to wake up at 3:20 to catch the last bus at 4:30. Uh....what kind of joke is that? Basically I took a three hour nap because I am physically incapable of sleeping well the night before a race.

Me and Shantelle (my amazing roommate) caught the bus and made it to the starting line with about an hour to go before the 6 a.m. start. I don't mind early starts at all, it was gorgeous having the sun come up behind us as we ran.

As we were waiting to start, I had one of those "oh crap I can't believe this is happening" moments when I realized that I forgot my gels!! My mint chocolate GU's were sitting in my bag that I had already dropped off in the clothing drop truck, and it would have been impossible to find it among all the other bags. I basically had a rant along the lines of "I should just quit now" and "my whole life is ruined" ect, ect. I mean, isn't the cardinal rule of racing is to NEVER try anything new on race day? I'm pretty sure running without gels falls under that category. Even though the race supplied gels at mile 6, I knew that wouldn't be enough. I usually eat mine at miles 4.5 and 9. To make up for it, I ate every orange and drank every cup of powerade I could get my hands on. Turns out that wasn't enough...

Me and Heather decided to stick with the 2:10 pacing group, as I had just run a 2:10 in April and I figured I could do it again. Uh, I was way wrong about that. Turns out the pacing group kind of sucked and they started out at like a 9:30, when the sign they were carrying said in big letters "9:55 PACE". I lost them by mile 3. Big surprise. Yet another mistake of this race was starting out too fast, much too fast. There wasn't so much of a half mile warm-up pace or anything! No wonder I crashed towards the end...

Not even a mile in, my shins started killing me, like they were screaming at me to stop. And I was like, hey shins, you need to grow up, k? This is really immature of you. Who do you think you are, ruining my race that was, by all accounts, ruined already? Around mile 3 I had to stop and stretch them out, and after that they felt a little better. A thought struck me that maybe my shoes were done and ready to be retired? I know from experience that old, worn-out shoes can cause random aches and pains. Then I remembered that I had bought these in October, and since then they have been through training and running of 3 half marathons!! I mentally kicked myself for not thinking of this earlier, and now I was running a race with worn-out shoes and probably doing more damage than I would otherwise. Oh well, I'm in the middle of a race, what am I gonna do? That's right, keep running.

Well, when I say running, I really mean "running for about a half mile and then walking for a minute and then attempting to run again and failing miserably". Honestly though, besides my full marathon last summer (and St George marathon in 2009) I probably walked the most in this race than any other. The combination of achy legs, low energy, and less-than-ideal training really threw my body for a loop. But you know what? There's bound to be a bad race now and again, and there's always another one to look forward to, so I'm not worrying over this one.

I ended up finishing with a truly astounding time of 2:16:03 (easy on the sarcasm, now!). Kind of a joke, really. Seeing how my very first half marathon (in 2010) was a 2:17, this was pretty sad. Ha ha. But you know what? This race was truly a learning experience for me!

1. Make sure your training doesn't suck.
2. Make sure your shoes aren't dead.
3. Double and triple check and you have everything before you drop your bag off at the start.
4. Don't start out too fast!!!
5. NEVER try anything new on race day.
6. Lay off the junk food. Seriously. I didn't mention this but I think I'm carrying a couple extra pounds than I was in April, which can make a huge difference.
7. Maybe 5 Guys Burgers the night before wasn't the best idea? But it sure was delicious!!

Next on the running agenda-

 Top of Zion relay in southern Utah. Same setup as Ragnar. So stoked! June 29th-30th. Check it out here.

Big Cottonwood Canyon half marathon, September 22nd. Check out this elevation map. Isn't that just a PR waiting to happen?!

Between those two races, I'm going to be working a lot on speed and hills. I think it is time to step it up from being a mediocre runner who just wants to finish each race to actually becoming a competitor.

Excited for things in store!