There, I said it. It was much harder to actually get that to come out of my fingertips than I thought that it would be.
My first and second year of running I was gung-ho about everything. I wanted to run ALL THE RACES, even if that meant pushing myself just a little too hard and bending the doctors orders just a little so that I could get back out there without a full recovery on an injury.
As 2015 started, I was realizing that my big problem was that I had spread myself a little too thin the previous two seasons. And while I realized that, I also think I might have finally gotten it through my thick scull that some races you run for the fun of it, and some races you go all out and race, aiming for a PR. By choosing to separate my races between competition mode and joy mode, I realized that I was able to bring joy back into this sport for me.All along, I had planned to run and RACE the Melbourne Music Half Marathon. On paper, this race looked flat and fast. I was intrigued by the fact that they would have 23 different musical acts on the course for entertainment, and I thought that this would be a good race to PR at... particularly after what happened not long before that at the Miami Half Marathon.
My friend Vikki and I had actually planned an entire girls weekend (a mini-runcation) of sorts for the weekend. We would drive up two days befoe, stay at a decent hotel overlooking the beach (which I rarely indulge in), visit the sweet artsy little town of Melbourne, and we would run the race. It was a great plan, and we really enjoyed our time away from our men.Our men, that sounds so caveman-eque, my other feminist friends would gasp!
Anyway, the race was ultimately not really anything to write home about. It was essentially a big square that hit a decently sized bridge at mile marker 6, then another really large bridge at mile 12. The first half of the race had really interesting scenery, and it was easy for me to maintain a nice easy race pace.
The problem was that going into the first bridge, I started to have a nagging feeling in my hip and groin that appeared to trail down into my foot. I had done too much too hard the week before, and I was certainly paying for it now.
So Vikki and I eased up and brought it back to a walk. She hadn't put in any significant high mileage since Halloween, and she was also having some nagging pain to a recent injury. So we decided that we would walk the rest of the race, and enjoy the company, enjoy the bands, enjoy the crowd support, etc.
But the course was really front-half friendly with entertainment and things to distract us from the distance. We were left with little more to entertain us than giggling as we bit the heads off of gummy bears or catcalled one of the course marshalls that constantly rode by us on a moped with his 80s music blaring.By the time we finished, I was almost delirius from the boredom of the course and the excruciating heat that seemed to increase exponentially (welcome to Florida!). I really didn't care about the time when we finished, because I was laughing and joking with a good friend the whole time. And we have pictures to prove it.
Half Marathon #34
Gun 3:49:49
Chip 3:46:54
OA 1103/1127
AG 679/699
Nice job! Wow. HM #34. That's fantastic.
ReplyDeletethank you so much!
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