Every Wish That We Put Into Motion.... (comments welcome!)

[Herding_Cats]

You'll have shorts underneath, right? Can you have someone on standby to grab it from you if it's not working? Then you could wear it and if you end up hating it during the race, take it off without never seeing it again.

Absolutely YES to shorts (maybe capri leggings) underneath. And maaaaaybe to handing it off if neeeded. The course is a rail-trail and it’s out and back and I know there’s a good 4mi stretch where it doesn’t cross any roads. DH and DS3 are running the 5k, which starts I think an hour after the half, which would eliminate them from being potential hand-offs. I should double check the various start times.

There’s no way I would just ditch it on the side of the trail, but I’m also taking my vest so if I was desperate I could shove it in the big pocket on the back. Not something I want to have to stop and do during a race I’m trying to PR.

 

[azrivest]

It is intended to be an A race.

Is it a completely different skirt or is it a skirt model you've already worn before?

I tend to agree with @The Expert , I wouldn't wear it as well if this was my A-race. But I wore my Dottie when I tried to PR my 10k last winter and I got within 20 seconds sooo.... I might not be the best advice

 

[Blue Caterpillar]

Since it is a race that you are going for a PR, I wouldn't wear it. Most likely it would be fine, but if you are like me, I would start the race worrying if would bother me, asking myself: Is it bothering me, every few steps? But I'm an anxious sort.

If you have worn that brand before, and if worse comes to worse and you wouldn't mind not seeing it again, I would wear it.

 

[Herding_Cats]

I know it's still 3 days away, but I am not excited about this forecast. The rain has been in and out of the forecast for the past week, and different websites say different things (accuweather, for example, only has a 40% chance of rain in the morning.) We are also having a warm spell again starting tomorrow, so instead of my average morning temp in the low-mid-50s, it's likely going to be mid-60s, with matching dewpoint, and high humidity. *sigh* At least it's supposed to be cloudy? Also, THUNDERSTORMS. Not just rain. LIGHTNING.

And yes, I know some of you would LOVE mid-60s. But for here that's warmer than usual.

 

[Naomeri]

I’m sorry your weather isn’t cooperating. Fingers crossed that it adjusts downward before race day

 

[DopeyBadger]

This is my favorite real time lightning monitoring site (link). I’d guess by Saturday night the storm will have formed and you can see how much lightning activity it is generating as it heads your way.

 

[Herding_Cats]

Probable rainy half tomorrow morning (scattered thunderstorms, but the lake does weird stuff to storm systems this time of year) so I’m making sure I’m not forgetting any preparatory things:

-Chafe stick all of the things.
-Vaseline the feet
-Wear a visor (or hat)

Sleeves? Tank top? I will be wearing my vest as they are encouraging runners to be “nature friendly” and reduce their need for single-use cups at aid stations. My vest doesn’t chafe, but idk if I should opt for sleeves or not because of the wet factor.

 

[The Expert]

Probable rainy half tomorrow morning (scattered thunderstorms, but the lake does weird stuff to storm systems this time of year) so I’m making sure I’m not forgetting any preparatory things:

-Chafe stick all of the things.
-Vaseline the feet
-Wear a visor (or hat)

Sleeves? Tank top? I will be wearing my vest as they are encouraging runners to be “nature friendly” and reduce their need for single-use cups at aid stations. My vest doesn’t chafe, but idk if I should opt for sleeves or not because of the wet factor.

I would personally go short sleeve or sleeveless and wear separate arm sleeves if the weather is cool or windy -- something super fitted that I could peel off if necessary. I could see regular long shirt sleeves getting waterlogged and floppy and driving me crazy.

 

[Herding_Cats]

All my planning for nothing. The rain dissipated over the lake and it should be a dry race. Boo to the T+D being 68+65 with 90% humidity at race start though.

 

[HangWithMerida]

You’re probably already racing but good luck! Can’t wait to hear how it goes!

 

[Herding_Cats]

Unofficial time of 2:40:53 (my watch) and now OFFICIAL time of 2:40:51, which is a PR. (According to Strava I PR'ed all of the distances it tracks from the 10k through the HM today.) Previous PR was 2:49:41(and had a T+D of 102 ). It was a really small race. I think there were only around 30 people in the Half.

I felt not great the whole race and kissed my 11:30 pace goodbye when I looked at the weather forecast this week, and after seeing the humidity this morning (90% and it was overcast, and had only gone down to 75% by the time we got home) I figured 12min would be a good goal, but I would still try for 11:45s for at the the first half of the race. I set my intervals to 60/30 for the first 20ish minutes, and then to 90/30 (trying to hit that 11:45 pace.) I backed it off to 80/30 around mile 7 (when I also stopped to get my soft flasks refilled, and then stopped to get a rock out of my shoe and then 2 more times because I had overtightened when I re-tied said shoe, which dropped my pace for that mile a lot.) I backed it off again to 60/30 at mile 11 because I was starting to feel like I NEEDED the walk break sooner than it was coming so I figured it would be better to not "cheat" the interval and better to just adjust it down.


I did have some issues during the race that I'm not sure if they were fuel/hydration related, or just because of a 135 T+D and the 90% humidity level pretty much eliminating the chance for my sweat to evaporate. My HR went up to around 170 right from the start and never went back down, even during my walk breaks it stayed pretty high. I would randomly get goose-bumps, but only on my upper arms. I got a little light headed a few times (which I immediately followed up with water and then electrolytes and in a few cases more fuel.) My brain was pretty much over it by mile 10 and I decided that I wasn't running any splits that started with anything higher than a 12. DH and DS3 ran the 5k, and I knew I was fading at mile 9, so I sent DH a text asking if he'd be willing to walk out and meet me on the course and run me in. He did and I sooooo needed the distraction. I drank 32oz of water and nuun/gatorade while on the course, and I'm pretty sure that wasn't enough. 1 pack of honey stinger gummies and 1 raspberry huma.

I'm also attaching my splits from the 1st HM I ran back in 2021 with today's splits.

 

[striker1064]

Great job on the PR!

 

[azrivest]

Yeah great job, especially since you weren't feeling great.

 

[DopeyBadger]

 

[The Expert]

Sounds like a pretty good race, especially for those conditions! Nice mental training and a PR to boot. Woohoo!

 

[WillRunForPizza]

Congratulations on the PR! Great job!

I had the goosebumps thing happen a few times during my race this morning too, although I also couldn't tell you why...

 

[GollyGadget]

Great job on the PR!

 

[Naomeri]

Great job!!

 

[HangWithMerida]

Congrats on the new PR!! Sounds like you made some smart adjustments and avoided a crash.

 

[Herding_Cats]

Today I feel......



shockingly good.


I can feel it some in my quads (which pretty much never happens in training) but other than that, it's good. My feet don't even hurt! And my ankle didn't flare up during the race (although the 600mg of ibuprofen before the start may have helped there) which was amazing.


I'm technically not scheduled to do anything until the end of the week, which is great since DD is having her 3rd birthday party this weekend, so I have a layer cake to assemble and decorate along with getting the house cleaned up for guests.

I completely forgot about my FAVORITE part of yesterday, and one funny part.

So first, the funny part. DS1&2 had a XC meet downstate on Friday (ugh it was so hot!) and on the way home we passed where the course for the half crosses the road and I noticed that the porta had been delivered.....at the wrong crossing. It was about 1/4 of a mile away from where it was supposed to be (it was at the snowmobile crossing) AND it was at mile 5, which is right in the range of when I pretty much always need a bathroom on long runs. I mentioned it during bib pickup (because yeah...didn't want to risk ticks in the woods, and also didn't want to add on half a mile to use the bathroom!) and they were already aware of the issue and trying to get ahold of the company to come and move it to where it needed to be; no one was answering the phone. So the race director gets some helpers and moves it herself Saturday evening. And then the company shows up sometime in the middle of the night on Saturday and ALSO moves it (so now it's in the wrong spot again!) and THEN SOMEONE STOLE IT. Yeah. Someone drove past, thought "I could really use my very own porta" and loaded it up and stole the whole dang thing. And now the only porta on course is at like mile 3. Who even steals a porta potty? (Probably someone taking it for their deer camp tbh.)

And my favorite part: this group of 3 people (2 guys and a girl) who look like they're in their late 20s/early 30s are near me as we are getting ready to start and are talking with each other and made some comment about "Good thing we did all of the training for this!" and then laughed. So I turned around and said "That sounds like sarcasm!" They said that they'd done a really good job with their training in July but August kind of fell apart and one of the guys was worried because he hadn't run more than 10 miles, etc. The girl in their group was the one I finished ahead of (by around 23min) and she faded quite a lot at the end. I made sure to stick around after I finished so I could cheer for her when she came in, because it's SO HARD to run for 3 hours pretty much by yourself the whole time in your first half marathon. I also may or may not have gently encouraged guilted her husband to walk out and meet her and run in with her at the end. She asked me a bunch of questions about intervals, and recovery stuff (they had a 3hr drive home after the race) and we commiserated about trying to fit in training runs with young kids at home. Also, while we were waiting for her to finish the guys asked a bunch of questions about disney races because I ran in my rundisey tank. They asked about registration, when the races happen and then the one guy said, "So you have to do the marathon to go through all 4 parks? Guess we're running a marathon!"