Charleston Half-Marathon!

I DID IT! 1:58:37

I DID IT!

So exciting! The morning started off at a chilly 37 degrees when we left my apartment at 6:30am...brr! I was wearing UnderArmor pants and shirt, a headband, and gloves. We parked at the finish line and had to take school buses to the start. Seriously thought I was going to freeze to death before we started! We got in line after taking a few pictures and it was pretty long. We had to wait on about 4 buses before we got on one, so we were probably in line for around 20-25 minutes. It gave me a chance to chat with some of the people around us, which was pretty interesting. The next race I run I definitely need to talk to more people. I'm not really a chatter, but it seemed like most of the people around were really friendly and chatty, and it was cool hearing some of the stories they had.

Me and my mom before the race. I convinced her to walk the 5k:)

I got to the start line and tried to look for Lindsey and Jen but I didn't see them anywhere (the bus situation caused me to be late to our meetup spot). I made my way to the 2:00:00 pacer sign, but for some reason all of the pacers seemed to be clumped up at the front. I'd decided I was going to find the pacer and stick with him or her so that I could get my 2 hour finish time, so that's what I did:)

About 4 miles in, my right knee started hurting. It weirded me out, because it hadn't hurt at all during any of my training. It seemed like it was more above my knee, maybe quads or something. Still not sure what it was, and hoping it doesn't come up again! That pain stuck around the rest of the race, but it was only mildly annoying:P

Since I was sticking with the pacer, there was a little clump of us there. I was kind of in my own little world, but since I don't run with headphones or music I just listened to other people chatting (ps - a guy passed me with his music player and no headphones...kind of annoying!). One guy told a funny story about being heckled by a 10 year old kid at a park ("Hey! You're losing!"), and since their route took them out and back on the other side of the park, the kid just waited for him on the other side to yell, "Hey! You're still losing!" I thought it was pretty funny anyway. lol

My personal medal. So excited!

The second half of the race I was having trouble keeping on pace, so I would drop back every now and then. Then I'd have to dig a little deeper to sprint to catch back up with them. I figured that if I just made sure I caught up after each mile-marker, I'd be fine, and it seemed to work out for me!

The only down-side was that the 2 hour pacer had dropped out somewhere around 10 miles, so I was following the 4 hour marathon pacer. When we split up from the marathoners around mile 12, I was starting to run on fumes. That was one of the roughest miles I'd ever run. The rest of the course had been on roads and pretty straight, but the last 1.1 was through a park and weavy and you could see the runners ahead of you and it just wasn't fun. lol. I really didn't think I was going to make sub-2:00:00 at that point. I seriously considered walking and had those thoughts of "Why am I doing this!?!"

In the end, it was okay. I crossed the finish line with my arms in the air (for like a second, then I was WAAAAAY too tired) in 1:58:37. So happy! At about mile 10 I had decided that my goal of 2:00:00 might have been too ambitious and that I'd just be happy under 2:10:00. So I was super excited about my finish time!

My time from the official results.

As I crossed the finish line I heard someone yell my name. I had told my mom I was planning to finish around 2:00-2:10, so I was hoping she'd be there, but I didn't see her. I got my medal and walked away from the finish line and found Alex from my PT class. I'd completely forgotten she was running too (1:44, AWESOME!). She'd seen me finish and found me after I was done, so we grabbed some snacks and went to watch the runners coming. We cheered Lindsey and Jen on as they crossed the finish, and got a picture together:

MUSC DPT 2014 represented!

I found my mom and she grabbed some shrimp and grits. I couldn't imagine eating that or drinking my beers after the race...lol. I didn't have as much of the stomach trouble as when I did the 10k (that started right after that race), but it started about 45 minutes after. It wasn't as bad this time around. I think it's just the whole morning run thing, because I didn't have any problems after my 13.1 afternoon run. Then again, it might be because I was running about 1 min/mile faster. Idk...got to work on that.

Post-Race shrimp and grits!

Even though I was uncomfortable that last mile, I'm already looking for where I want to do my next half. Depending on my Spring Break plans, I'm looking at the Georgia Half-Marathon in Atlanta, and thinking about a Half in Half (or all?) the States. How cool would that be?

Speaking of that...there was a lady at the marathon who was running the last marathon on her 50 Marathons in 50 States list. At 50 years old. How awesome is that!?! She makes me feel like a slacker!

50 Marathons in 50 States...all under 4 hours!

Needless to say, I'm now addicted to distance running. I love seeing how far I can push myself and I'm ready to see where this is going to take me!

- Jess

Tapering

Hey guys! This time tomorrow I should be almost finished with my first half marathon. Amazing. I've been training for 3 months to get here, and it's been an interesting and rewarding experience. I'm so excited about the expo and dinner tonight and THE RACE tomorrow!

I was laying in bed trying to fall asleep, when I remembered that this blog is about running and I should be blogging about the things I learn as I go. I've been kind of slack about this, so here we go.

Tapering.

Yeah, that thing you're supposed to do before big races to let your muscles rest and build up glycogen and all of that fun stuff. I know it's great for your body and wouldn't ever NOT do it, but it's really messing with my mind!

As I said before, I've been training for 3 months. That's 3 months of pushing myself to distances I never even imagined I would run (hello: 13.1 miles!) and going stir crazy the week and a half that I had to sideline myself for my ankle injury. After all that motivation and constant going, it freaks you out when this happens:

Me: "Okay body, we've got a week before show time. Our runs this week are only 7, 5 and 4 miles."
Body: "WHAT!?! LAZY TIME!"

Yeah, since I had to do the elliptical on Wednesday (we all how much I love those...not), my last outdoor run before the half was yesterday's 4 miles. I got Lindsey to go with me, and as I mapped out the four miles (we actually did 4.35, but who's counting?) I just thought it was nothing. We're only running around the battery once? What? During training, I've been bad about only running 3x a week, when my training plan called for 4x. I just skipped my Saturday 4 milers because a) I'm lazy on Saturdays and b) I really thought, what's the point of going out if I'm only doing 4 miles?.

Let's reflect for a moment. Three months ago I couldn't even run 4 miles, and now I'm saying it's nothing. Let's appreciate that fact for a second. WOW. Also, that's an extra 400 calories I could be burning. 400 calories = 18.8 Hershey kisses. Just saying.

ANYWAY, back to the tapering thing. The whole time I was running yesterday and this week, I was second guessing myself. My run Monday wasn't the best 7 miles. It made me start to think that maybe I can't run 13.1 miles. It's hard to remind yourself that you did it less than 2 weeks ago and that your body can handle it. You're actually recovering more and letting your muscles build up. Yesterday was really short and only averaged about 10:50, when my race goal is 10:00 flat. That number was just discouraging. It's hard to remember that you stopped at crosswalks and didn't get to your super fast catch-up 7-9 miles. Moral of the story: don't second guess yourself and 3 months of training!

I think that's the biggest battle I'll be struggling with tomorrow: my mentality. If I can get over that (and my ankle and anterior tib hold on for one last run) I should do awesome.

And if nothing else, tonight's dinner and goodie bag will cheer me up!

-Jess

Visions that will be dancing through my head tonight!

1 day, 12 hours to go!

Well, it's almost go time! Finished my last prerace run!

I'm getting really excited now:) My mom and her friend are coming down to Charleston tomorrow, then we're heading to the race expo to pick-up our packets and eat the pre-race dinner. Yummy carbs!

Nom, nom, nom!

I had a rough run on Monday...really bad anterior tibialis pain in my right leg (which was a first in a LONG time) and then the ankle pain that forced me to sit out a week and a half around Thanksgiving. I was really worried since I could barely walk normally on Tuesday, even with an ankle brace. I ended up just jumping on the elliptical for 50 minutes on Wednesday and ran 4.35 miles today.

I've been eating an extra dose of carbs all week in the form of rice. Delicious! I had been doing pretty bad on my dieting with all the chocolate in my apartment. Like, really bad. Tuesday I started following my diet hard core again. If I go by my New Year's Eve weight, I'd gained 2.8 lbs as of Tuesday:( Yesterday and today I was solid at 159lbs...so I should get back to 155lbs in a month. But I also plan on starting to lift again, so we'll see what happens:)

But not thinking about that, I have a HALF-MARATHON in 36 hours!!!

1.5 days until the Charleston Half-Marathon

78 days until the Cooper River Bridge Run

New Year, New Goals!

Well, it's a new year.

I wasn't planning on drinking much/anything for New Year's, but I went to Goat Island with Burry and some friends and drank a little too much to do my New Years Day 13.1 miles. Oops.
However, with that extra bit of dehydration, I WAS able to hit my New Year's Day goal of 155 lbs. That's right. I DID IT (and today it was 155.8 lbs, so I was only dehydration-cheating a little:P). I can't believe it. I started logging daily the same day I started my official training plan for the half. With training and diet, I've literally run my butt off. It's crazy to think that I haven't been this light since high school (I can't remember my weight before I started packing it on after my knee injury sophomore year).

155 pounds!!! So EXCITING!

I feel like I've lost a good bit of upper body muscle though, so that's one of my goals for the year: to start working on upper body/abs again. Fun times!

I was going to hydrate all day yesterday and do the 13.1 mile long run once I felt hydrated enough, but I never got there. I felt like it was just too big of a risk to do it, so I postponed. It helped that Monday's were my usual long day anyway. I was still a little disappointed I didn't get it in though. Maybe that will motivate me to put the drinks down next year:P

I've earned the 13.1 sticker!

So yeah. Today I ran 13.1 miles. That's ridiculous. I can't believe I've made it to the point where I just went out and ran that much. No music. No people to chat with. Just me running. I feel so accomplished. I'll be honest. When I started training 3 months ago, I really didn't know if I'd be able to do it. And honestly, if it hadn't been for Jen and Lindsey, I probably wouldn't have. Definitely shows you how much a group can help you. I'm also really excited that by my crazy idea to run it, I've convinced them to run their first half-marathons too!

When I set out today, I didn't really have a goal time. I'd decided that I wanted to finish the race with a time of 2:20:00, but that I'd be happy with anything under 2:30:00. Well, I didn't write down the first couple of mile markers, but the first couple of miles felt really slow. When I hit the 3rd mile, I was probably running 11:00-11:15 min/miles. I was kinda depressed about that, but figured it was from the New Years drinking. Then I didn't really check it for a few miles, and when I finally did, I was averaging 10 min/miles. I really thought I'd missed a turn or something, but I knew I was going a lot faster, and I started timing my miles. I even double checked my map when I got back. But I wasn't wrong.

I'd finished in 2:10:48.

WHAT!?! My first ever 13.1 mile time was UNDER my race day goal? How the heck did that happen? Since I just went out like it was a normal run, and was doing it on my own, I'm changing my race day goal to 2:10:00. It's pretty freaking doable. I just found out that there will be pacers for the half too, and there is a 2:00:00 one. I'm going to try to keep up with that group. If I can just start out a little faster, I think I can do it. Or it might kill me. We'll see:D

1,180 calories of pure deliciousness.

After my run, I rewarded myself by replacing 1,180 calories (of my burned 1447 calories) with Zaxby's. I don't remember the last time I've eaten more than a couple fries (literally 2). It was so delicious, but so greasy. After not eating fast food much (other than Subway) the past 3 months, it's kind of disgusting to me now. So weird!

Well, that's about it for today. Other than the fact that I'm STOKED about the whole carbo-loading thing I get to do next week. Since I hit my goal, I'm just maintaining my weight until after the race (After, I might try to lose 5 more lbs, but I'll also be starting to lift again, so I'm not expecting much...bring on the muscle weight!)

-Jess

12 days until the Charleston Half-Marathon

89 days until the Cooper River Bridge Run

BONUS
Here is my first feeble attempt at using the splits function on my watch. I didn't think of it until mile 5, then freaked out when I didn't know what the heck I was doing. It was probably really funny watching me try to figure it out. Also, why didn't I think of using this before!?! (Keep in mind that some places I have to do that whole stoplight thing, which I'm pretty sure happened on mile 9)

Miles 1-5:    10:14 min/mile avg.
Miles 6-7:    10:30 min/mile avg.
Mile 8:         10:13 min/mile
Mile 9:         11:43 min/mile
Miles 10-11:  8:59 min/mile
Mile 12:        9:29 min/mile
Mile 13.1:     9:50 min/mile

Definitely rocked the last few miles. Interesting. I'm definitely going to start timing that more often. I'll worry about time goals more seriously at my next half:)