A record for my posterity, and a virtual dramamine for the rest of you

Before too much time passes, I need to take a moment and document my Half Marathon. Otherwise, the details would be fuzzy and my poor posterity would be left with a boring, bare bones story. I am a pretty mediocre runner, but I'll still take a stab at making the event as riveting as possible without embellishing .... too much.

Saturday morning we were up by 4 and surprisingly, my sister Melody didn't have to physically drag me out of bed, which I was entirely expecting. When I opened the front door to check the weather conditions I was nervous. It was cold. Very cold, and I was far from dressed for the occasion. I thought I had made the effort to plan ahead. After all, I had checked out what the weather was supposed to be like in Ogden on race day. It was supposed to be sunny, in the high seventies to low eighties. Warm, right? Well, I forgot to take into account that I was running before the sun even came up. And, Melody added, that I was starting in the mountains.

The mountains?!

Of course Melody was all prepared with her arm warmers, gloves, pants, hat. She had really done her homework. Granted, she was starting further up the mountain than I was, but really the difference between our starting lines was this: mine being very cold, and hers freezing. I was grateful we had been provided a long sleeved shirt at the expo the day before so I added that to the few layers I came with.

Melody was antsy and anxious and kept me very aware of how much time I had left at the hotel. 14 minutes! 8 minutes! 3 minutes! She would call out. I was really proud of myself for getting in the car when she said it was time.

As we were driving down the empty street I gasped. "I forgot my i-pod!" Like my sister really needed this excitement to add to her already intense pre-race jitters. We turned around and I sheepishly ran back inside the hotel room feeling like a total moron. I grabbed my i-pod and flew back into my seat and tried again to drive to the buses, incident free. I parked the car and Melody and her girlfriend Rebecca who was riding with us took off like rockets. We were about a half mile away from where we needed to be. I started running, then remembered, AGAIN, that I had forgotten my i-pod. This time in the car. I ran back and grabbed it, and tried again to head for my bus.

Third time's the charm, right?

After a lovely scenic bus drive to the official starting line, I bee-lined it for the row of campfires. I needed to keep from turning blue before I ran. We each took our turns being a human rotisserie and rotated our bodies around the fire to try and find a comfortable balance between the freezing cold air and the burning hot flames.

On my way to the port-o-potty, who should I spot but Mother Dearest! She was holding a sign my little sister had made for me. So sweet. I could not believe my good fortune. Having my mom at the starting line meant I could wear my jacket right up until the race started, and then I could hand it to her. Thank goodness for Mom. She even loaned me her gloves until the race started. We soon met up with my Dad and they kept me company while I waited to get in line.

Here I am freezing my tush off with the cute sign my sister Rebecca made. Doesn't my mom look thrilled to be standing in the freezing cold at 6:30 in the morning?

And here I am shamelessly standing where I belong-- with the 10 minute mile pace group. Wahoo. Notice my i-pod Shuffle? Oh wait, it's so small you can't even SEE it.

As a little refresher these were my three goals:

1. NOT get passed by any marathoners. After all, they were starting 13.1 miles behind me and we were starting at the same time. Surely I was in decent enough shape that I could run 13 before someone could run 26, right? Let's hope so.

2. Feel great and have fun the entire race. (Which is code for not running hard enough for my body to feel any sort of discomfort. Which is really to say, I am a wimp, don't like pain, and prefer to run slow. Very, very slow.)

3. (this is a little strange) I wanted to see how much I could push my body without feeling the effects of it. Meaning, I wanted to see if I could run the entire race without wanting water, Gatorade or any of the other treats the wonderful race volunteers were handing out throughout the course. Now I realize had this been a full marathon, I would have been all about drinking water, walking through the water stations, taking the goo, oranges, etc. But since this was just 13, I just wanted to see if I could do it.

I anticipated I would be running around a 10 minute per mile pace. That put me finishing around 2 hours and 10 minutes. The gun went off and supposedly the race began. I was so far back from the actual starting line that it took a few moments before I could even start walking. Finally, we approached the starting line and I was off!

My dad took a shot of me just after the start. Proof that I am feeling good and having fun. And running so fast, I'm a blur!

At the first mile there was a hill. Fortunately Melody had explained to me ( I think she had the entire course committed to memory) that there was only one hill the entire race (for me) and it was down down down the rest of the way. So, I pretended I was Rocky and hauled up the hill, loving the feeling of passing people going up. That never happened to me in high school. I always got passed going up hills in cross country.

My tunes kept me happy and energized and after about 3 miles, I was ready to shed my long sleeved shirt. A lot of people were just tossing their warmer layers along the road, but this was my first official half marathon and it was a really nice running shirt. So, I decided to tie it around my waist. A good thing, because I needed to blow my nose a few miles later and didn't have any tissues handy.

Four miles into it, I was still feeling good, and hadn't stopped for or grabbed anything from the fantastic volunteers at each mile marker. I was chugging along feeling happy. In fact, here's a shot of me smiling. My knee began throbbing a little bit, probably from all the downhill pounding.

At mile seven I decided to grab a chocolate Goo, but I didn't open it or eat it. It was just nice to have it "just in case" I got hungry and that seemed to be enough to keep me going.

Mile after mile I kept waiting to hit some sort of wall. I had heard a lot of people saying that they felt great until mile 10 and then it was awful. The stars had aligned that day and the weather was perfect, I was feeling good, and fortunately didn't hit a wall.

Here's a shot of me right around the time I got Rick Roll'd. Melody was sneaky and uploaded Rick Astley's very annoying song on my play list. It was good to have a little chuckle at mile 11.5.

I was a little disoriented when I was at mile 12. I had just come off the river trail and noticed I was back in the city, in the heart of Ogden. I could see the Ogden temple just a few blocks away. I wondered how on earth I had gotten there. Oh yeah, I guess 12 miles down a mountain could put you back in the city, huh?

This is me coming down the home stretch. How appropriate for "Celebrate" to be blaring through my headphones at this point.

As I crossed the finish line I looked up at the clock which read: 2:00:45.

I was pleasantly surprised that I had done better than I expected to, by about 10 minutes. Then I started to get a little bummed, thinking that if I had remembered to wear my watch and had known how fast I was going, I totally could have broken 2 hours. I was also shocked how fast time seemed to go by during my race. I suppose that's the difference between training on a treadmill (gag me) and running outside with other people and listening to rockin' tunes.

I scoped outthe grassy area and took in all the free food and drinks that were being handed out. Great Harvest bread, Jamba Juice, and lots of Powerade. Yum. I felt like a celebrity. Then I heard someone calling out my name. It was Mom! She had seen me finish. Just like the old days, she was always there waiting for me at the finish.

Lucky for me, about 20 minutes after I finished, the first marathoner crossed the finish line, so I had accomplished all three of my goals: I felt great, didn't get passed by a marathoner, AND I managed to run 13.1 miles without stopping for water, food, or anything. Something good to know for future survival skills you know? You never know when you'll need to run 13.1 miles without stopping for water.

I called Kyle to report I had survived. Cade was anxious to hear if I had won. Not wanting to disappoint him I reassured him that, yes, Cade, I won my race. He was pleased. Please don't tell him otherwise.

Shortly after my race, Mom and I decided to stake out places to cheer for my sister (remember, she was running in the FULL marathon, hoping to qualify for Boston). Mom picked a spot in the final stretch, and I decided it might be kind of fun to run her last mile with her. So I jogged back a mile from the starting line and waited for her to emerge from the trees while cheering on the other runners.

Nine female marathoners later, I spotted my sister and was a little disappointed. I was hoping for at least another 10 minutes to rest. I was terrified I wouldn't be able to keep up with her. I know, after all she had already run 25 miles, so why wouldn't I be able to keep up with her? Because she is a machine. Her race pace is 7:30 per mile. I jumped in and starting running by her side. I was kind of expecting a little smile or "hi!" but she didn't even make eye contact with me. She had a girlfriend, Amanda on her other side who had met her 5 miles back so she and I kept up a conversation meanwhile Melody kept looking at her watch with a very pained expression on her face. She kept humming, but I was shocked and folks, for the first time in my life, I was actually physically running at a faster pace than my sister. It was a dear diary moment. In fact, here is proof that I am happy, ready to ramp up my speed, and she is tired, ready to be done:

With about a tenth of a mile to go, my sister called out, "Amanda, catch me" and she stumbled backwards. Amanda caught her and hoisted Melody's arm around her shoulders and encouraged her to keep going. I held on to her free hand and pulled. By some miracle, Melody found her mojo again and though she wanted to die, her feet kept stumbling forward toward the finish line. I could not believe the clock when we approached the finish line. My sister ran 26.2 miles in 3 hours, 14 minutes and 29 seconds. I was stunned. In order to qualify for Boston, she needed to finish it in 3 hours and 40 minutes. She destroyed that time.

The medics and nurses were waiting for her with a wheelchair and she immediately collapsed onto it and her eyes rolled back to her head. I was nervous and scared, but still taking in the moment of my sister's incredible time (which is probably why I am still smiling in shock here when I should have had a very worried look on my face).

Turns out she was overheated. Her body temperature had climbed to 105*. No, she was not dehydrated. She had just physically pushed her body so hard that it got that hot. 15 minutes later she was doing great. I have video footage of her recovery, so I'll have to post that when I find my camera.

Yes, she's nuts. We couldn't be more different about our race philosophies, and I am so very proud of her strong will, determinaton, and self-discipline. Also envious.

Here we are, thrilled the race is over and that she is healthy and standing on her own two feet.

Some other highlights/observations:

* Half-marathoners are more concerned about how they look than how they run. I saw a lot of cute matchy-matchy running outfits, skirts, hair accessories, and socks in my half-marathon crew. There were lots of girls who had straightened their long, blond hair for the race and left it down the entire 13 miles. Who does that? Thinking of Emily, my roommate in college, I tried to play the benefit of the doubt game and thought, "perhaps she is refraining from pulling her beautiful straight hair up in a ponytail for her race because as soon as she is done running, she has to go directly to a dog shelter to volunteer, after which she will immediately be heading over to a charity ball in which she wants to wear her hair down for and doesn't want a ponytail crease." It could be so, couldn't it? Can you think of any reasons why she wore her long hair down during a 13 mile run on a warm day?

* There were a number of funny signs along the way. My favorite: "Go Jessica! Run like there are 10,000 angry gnomes chasing after you!"

* There were some funny t-shirts, too. One in particular read on the back, "I suffer from rheumatoid arthritis and you're STILL behind me."

* A guy in a full fledged clown suit ran the marathon. He was just a few minutes in front of Melody. Wish I had gotten a picture.

Results:

When I woke up the next morning (feeling very, very sore) my sweet dad had printed out my results off the Internet and put them on the counter. I screamed when I saw the results of my actual time.

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My actual time: 1:59:00.40

Place (overall): 649th out of 1974

Place (gender): 314th out of 1295
Place (age group 25-29 year olds): 66th out of 205

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Post Race Musings:

Being average is a very comfortable place to be, at least insofar as running goes. I have a personal rule book that if I am going to continue with it, it has to be enjoyable from training until the race. Like most, running for me is about 92% mental. The happier and more un-stressed I am about the race, the further and faster I am able to run. But let's be honest, I wouldn't ever run that fast.

I would venture to say that a half-marathon is the perfect distance to run. It can be done with relatively low key training. I suppose because of that, I didn't feel an overwhelming sense of accomplishment after the race. If it had been a full marathon, I would have been sobbing uncontrollably. I'd love to be able to strike marathon off the list of things I do before I die.

Perhaps Richmond in 2010?

Maybe, but let's not get too carried away now.