Youth Villages 5k race report

I placed in the top 3 overall for the first time yesterday! The YV5k gives overall awards five deep, which is one of the reasons I ran it. I've placed 4th in several races, and once even placed 2nd but it was a race that only gave an award for the first overall woman, so it didn't count. I expected perfect running weather, but it turned out to be windy and overcast, so it actually felt cold. Once the race started it felt great, though. I watched a 14 year old girl go out strong and figured she must be a cross country phenom that I couldn't hang with, but I tried to keep any other women from passing me. I kept second place until about 2.5 miles in, when someone ran by and I was too tired to try to keep up. I was thrilled with third place, but there is something frustrating and also motivating about that feeling of wanting to go faster and having nothing left to give. After the race I kept questioning - could I have hung on to 2nd place? If I were just a little tougher, and could take just a little more pain, did I have it physically? Running is such a mental game, and thats part of what I love about it. You have to be strong physically, but you also have to be willing to hurt and fight through it. My 5k time has improved by a couple minutes in the last two years (or less, I can't remember), and it's partly from training harder and working harder at it, but equally because I've learned how to hurt, and how to push just to that point of not being able to go any further or faster. It's so fun to improve and see my times get faster that it's worth some pain and work!

This post is very braggy, but I'm excited! :)

Virginia Beach Trip and Shamrock Marathon Race Report

A couple weekends ago Justin and I went to Virginia Beach to see his brother Shon, sister-in-law Traci and their family. And, of course, like almost all the trips I plan, I ran a marathon.

It was REALLY great to see the Reynolds family. We hadn't seen them in a couple years and the kids have all grown up so much! Friday night Traci and Shon picked us up at the airport and we went to dinner at a great BBQ place where Karlee works, then hung out at their house. I wasn't the only runner in the family that weekend. Traci ran the 8k Saturday morning, then the rest of us loaded up to watch Pation and Jamisyn run the final mile of the kids' marathon. They ran the first 25.2 on their own then finished off the "marathon" at the event. They were both really fast and looked super-cute!

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Saturday afternoon the whole family went to Olive Garden so I could carb-load for the race Sunday morning. It was funny to require a table for 10 with just their family, Justin and me! Traci and I went out and got a movie and salad for dinner and we had a relaxing evening in.

Sunday morning the race started at 8am and I was anything but ready. This was supposed to be my fast, Boston Qualifying race, then for many reasons, most of which involve my lack of self-control, I didn't prepare for the race and just couldn't get back into race shape and race mentality in time for this one. I went into it hoping for the best (3:35, maybe?!) and expecting the worst (I REALLY wanted to break 4 hours, but I didn't even know about that). Karlee drove Justin and me to the start line and it was SO cold and windy! I had jokingly texted Kattie the night before saying  I was an old pro because I was wearing shorts and a short sleeve t-shirt, no questions asked, because I'm notoriously guilty of over-analyzing every component of my race outfit. Well, Sunday morning we got there and my confidence was shattered. Everyone else was wearing long sleeves and lots of people were in tights. I got scared and put my race shirt on under my short sleeve shirt, breaking my rule of NEVER wearing a race shirt before a race!

 

The race started 15 minutes late because they were waiting for half marathoners to clear out, so I had extra time to be cold and nervous. Finally I got to start, in the first corral (crazy!) just ahead of the 3:40 pacers. About 4 miles in I got really hot and was kicking myself for not trusting my instincts! I pulled off the long sleeves to give to Justin at mile 10.

I was actually right on a 3:40 pace up until about mile 12, then I started to fall apart. That is WAY too early to fall apart. I allowed myself to slow down, stop at the porta-potty a couple (as in, 4) times and just run whatever pace felt good. Around mile 20 my IT Band started hurting and I switched to a run/walk "strategy." Strategy implies that I had a plan, but the plan was to run until it got so painful I couldn't possibly run anymore, then walk until it stopped hurting. It worked. I finished around 3:55, which was a great time for me considering IT Band problems, poor training and poor nutrition. But I'm on the look-out for a redemption race to try for that 3:40 time!

Justin and the family all came out to watch the race, which was awesome. Unfortunately, this is the only spectator picture I have with Justin and Abigayl.

Here's me after the race showing off my medal (that doubles as a bottle opener!), finisher's cap and finisher's shirt.

Sunday night, Justin, Shon, Traci, Karlee, Meghan and McKenzie went to the Winter Jam concert, where a bunch of really great Christian bands were playing. The coolest part was the Newsboys' stage. I caught a video of the tail-end of the drummer on what looks like a Gravitron, but you can't see that seconds before it was completely vertical. And for those of you that listened to Christian music back in the day... yes, this is Jesus Freak. The lead singer from DC Talk is now part of the Newsboys. Who knew?