Friday, May 4, 2012

Forest City Half Marathon

So, last weekend was my goal race, which was a local half marathon (Forest City half marathon), which...was ok.

The race isn't a PB friendly one - many hills. Long, aggravating hills, particularly the one that is shoved in about 1 km from the end. I love that one. On the plus side, the weather was just about perfect. We started the race around 2-4 C, which felt pretty cold at the start, but it warmed up. It was clear so it got pretty sunny, and by the end it felt hot. I wore shorts, a singlet and arm warmers (and gloves). The first 17km went really well. I had one slow kilometre, but the rest were between 5:02/km and 5:07/km, which right around a 1h 47min half, which was my goal. I had IT band issues earlier in training, but I thought I had them beat. It turns out, not so much on that one. I had a little bit of pain maybe around 7-10km but it was manageable, nothing awful, and the pain wasn't increasing, it was just there. Cue 17km when I felt like my leg was dying. I hadn't experienced pain like that since it freaked out on me in early March when I hobbled the last 1500 m of my long run. In any event I made it to the finish, but I lost about a minute (or about 15 seconds per km) over the last 4 km of the race. So, that was pretty disappointing.

That all being said, it was a PB. I was pretty disappointed at the end of the race, since it wasn't what I wanted, and I felt like I could have done it. It wasn't like I ran out of gas, or wasn't hitting my time or anything, it was a flare up of an injury I thought I had kicked (I mean, really, I had about a month with races, and long runs and it wasn't saying anything that made me think it was coming back). So that was frustrating. But, as my coach pointed out, it was a PB, and it's hard to be super disappointed about that for a long time. And looking forward, I think provided I stay healthy, I'll have a kickass half in the fall. Got the PB the hard way, I guess. It's kind of weird getting a PB, which normally makes me really, really happy, and not being super excited about it.

Unfortunately during the run there was chafing on the inside of my arm. The armwarmers I wore, which I love, have a silicone band at the top to help hold them up (I guess). I didn't put bodyglide on underneath it, and partway through the race I could feel the pain of the chafing. I pulled down the armwarmer a bit, but it was too late, and the chafing had already started. I could feel the sweat getting into it and making it sting, more so at the end of the race, when all those endorphins started to wear off, and I was standing around and sweating. Showering was also a fun experience that consisted of gritting my teeth and trying to get sweat off as fast as possible. I ended up getting a larger-ish bandage at work to cover it, since I think my shirts at work were rubbing against it, and making me, in general, quite uncomfortable.

So, despite the chafing and IT issues, it was a pretty successful race, so I'm trying to be a little more positive about it.

Until next time,

Lauren