This past weekend I ran my 4th 21.1 K race. It is called the 9 run run (911) in support of Ottawa’s First Responders (Fire, Police and Paramedics). I agreed to run this back in June when I was out running regularly and getting things in gear. Well summer came and went and as usual I was feeling unprepared for race day. I practically offered up my first born to my running partner so that we could start earlier with the walkers. I was going to need at least 3K of walking to warm up my hammy.
I came home from work on Friday so exhausted that I went for a two hour nap. When I woke, I was still stressing out and skitterish but prepped up my kit. This meant organizing my gels, yes I have succumbed to using energy gels, and my Sharkies and my belt, bib, running gear and post running clothes and my all-time favourite prerace/run booster – the raisin buttertart. I was in bed by 9 and out like a light by 9:05. Normally I get so nervous I don’t even sleep. Not this round. Five AM came way to early, but I crawled out of bed, stretched a bit, slowly got dressed and had a bite to eat, stretched a bit more and then counted the WW points for the gels, tarts, and chews. That freaked me out – 9 points for the tart. I started to second guess the eating of a tart. What the heck bring the tarts any way, I have a 45 miniute drive to debate eating a raisin butter tart.
I was glad we were starting 1:15 ahead of the runners. It was going to be a long run for me. My goal was to complete in 3:30, that’s how unprepared I felt. On the drive out to Stittsville I decided that there would be no tart in my future. I wasn’t going to blow my healthy eating strategy because of my “race day tradition/superstition”.
I have been doing some training, just not running as much as I should be. My hubby and I drop of our food bank donations, and meet my running buddy. We head to the starting line for the walkers – there is about 10 of us. Oh oh, porta potty…I was thankful this was not the Ottawa race weekend where I would have had to stand in line for an eternity with prerace panic setting in. The Mayor climbs up into the fire truck to unleash us beastly walkers. Off we go……
We start walking at a pretty fast pace, one I am sure is faster than my run pace. I start to feel weak in the knees and think I am sweating bullets and we have only moved about 50 paces. I start to panic and think I am going to pass out. You know that feeling when you haven’t eaten in hours (more than 8). I get all clammy trying to figure out what is going on. Then it dawns on me – BUTTERTART, I didn’t eat the freaking butter tart. I call hubby up on the phone, get his location and tell him to meet me a specific cross road with the tart. Next thing I know most of these “walkers” have started running. We need to kick it down. When I see Marc with the tart box in hand I start yelling at him to open it up and hand me the damn tart. It’s like I was possessed. Sure enough I don’t have to break pace and I even got a kiss out of it. I am so lucky to have him support me. I shovel the tart in my mouth as we are walking along, hoping it doesn’t come back up.
At this point I realize I did not bring my sun glasses – SAWWEEETTT I say to my buddy. This means it is going to be sunny the whole race. Sure enough Mother Nature cooperated. Not a spigot of rain fell during the entire time we ran.
Surprisingly enough, the tart stays down and we start to walog (walk/jog) at a nice pace. I feel I could do the next 19+ kilometers at this pace. I am confident now that I will have the energy (what with the tart, two gel packets and two gummy packets). I pass up on water at the first station. We turn up the LONG road the bulk of the race is up this road and there are cars driving up and down both sides. We walkers apparently aren’t worthy have having the road closed. Oh well, not like I have never run on a road facing traffic before. Seriously why do some jackasses have the need to speed when they see people on the road!
This is a long long long long road for me. It’s the first time I have run with someone, the first time I have run without my music on, and the first time I have run with NO, ZERO, ZILCH, NADA crowd on the road cheering the runners on. It feels awkward for me, but I know I can adapt.
My buddy and I take walk breaks along the way and I realize at the pace we are going at I need to call Marc to tell him when we hit the 10K mark so he can meet me at the end. I give him notice we are looking at a 3 hour finish now and not 3:30.
We were around the 16K marker when the first runner from the 9:15 start comes whizzing by – actually it was the lead motor cycle. Cool thing … a dude on a handcycle (he was operating the horizontal bike with his hands – pardon my ignorance on the proper term for this vehicle) was keeping up with the motorcycle and the lead fast dude was not too far behind. I wondered how running so close to a motorcycle’s exhaust would affect lung capacity, and acknowledge I that would never have to worry about running behind the lead vehicle!
I have exhausted all my watered down gels and have a few gummies left over. My buddy starts to cramp up and so we slow to a walk, then I start to cramp up so I move to a walog pace. My walog is as fast as her walk. She tells me to go ahead. I say no, obviously she doesn’t know me very well. I couldn’t leave her behind and finish without her so if we walk across we walk across. Oh oh, people cheering on the trail at a street crossing, we decide to pick up the pace and look good, when no one is looking, we slow down again. No point in forcing an injury. After all, to complete is my game, not compete.
As we turn off the trail and onto the road, I start scanning the crowd for my man, he was nowhere in sight and I only hope that he is okay and stuck in traffic. We finish, under 3 (2:58:52!) get some delicious chocolate milk, which I believe I inhaled mine fresh from the carton. I call Marc because he was nowhere to be seen at the finish area and I did not get my traditional finishing kiss. He had to park a long way away after waiting forfreakingever to come down Shea road. We get a post run photo, some chili, a couple of burgers (all free for participants) and I get to use an indoor bathroom, this was the highlight of my race!!!
I wasn’t feeling tired at all and I didn’t feel my usual exhaustion when we got home. Even my attempt to nap was futile, apparently there would be no napping for me! Off to our friends 50th birthday celebration and I have a couple of beers, some snacks, mostly healthy and then it’s 1 AM before I get to bed. Come Sunday morning, I cannot move my legs. My quads feel like they have been sledge hammered to smitherines. I could barely make it to the bathroom. Since Marc is exhausted from the rum running the night before I take a muscle relaxant and head for the couch, where I lay for the entire day with the exception of hot tubbing it for one hour. I even started longingly at my foam roller thinking of how painful yet useful it would be to roll my quads and hammies out on the floor. Somewhere in the day I realize I have to get organized for my swimming lesson on Monday, which schizza – that’s tomorrow. Crap I hope I can walk by then!
Off goes the alarm at 5 am Monday morning, snooze, then 10 minutes later it goes off again. I toy with the idea of not swimming and realize that is probably the worst idea ever. Up I get and struggle down the stairs and out the door. Legs aren’t as bad as yesterday and hopefully a swim will help out. 4X50 of kicking, ya that went slow. I probably shouldn’t have used my legs today, I would have gotten further faster. Oh well, I still love my lessons, because I am learning all kinds of things and am trying to correct my bad swimming habits, like relaxing my arm as soon as my figure tips hit the water. I am learning about recovery while swimming, and DPS (I have a test in this next week) and the faster I get the lap done the more rest time I can have.
I now walk like a puppet on a string and anticipate that by Tuesday I should be okay to run again. Overall a good run and I will have to run more since I want to run a marathon in 2013 along with completing a few tris. Now I just need to focus my eating habits and work on the recovery process. Sure hope that some of the stuff I am learning in swimming rubs off on me! And oh ya, remember to eat a butter tart before every race and all the right stuff I did before that too!
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