If A Race Day Could Be Perfect...

...it would probably look like this. The 2nd Annual Bentonville Half Marathon was last weekend, 04.02.11.

It was 44 degrees at the start. Beautiful, sunny day with little wind (the previous Saturday we'd run 20 miles in freezing rain and 25 mph wind!).

There were 813 finishers in the Half Marathon. We started at the back of the pack.

LAST YEAR we ran this race without training. We decided to do it 2 days before race day and had only run a distance of 6 miles in the month leading up to the event. It was tough. And it was 30 degrees. I think my finish time was longer than 2:45.

Feeling pretty awesome after the first hill and about 3 miles. Hey, someone we know is standing there with a camera! We were feeling so good, we ran a 10K pace for the first 7 miles....and then paid for it the last 6 miles!

Our 10K split was 1 hour 4 minutes. By the last 3 miles of the race the temps were warming up. And our local version of heartbreak hill is in the 13th mile. We'd set out to just have fun and take it easy on this race.

We totally surprised ourselves with a 2 hr 17 min finish time [10 minutes faster than the PR I'd set on 02.06.11 in Huntington Beach]....exactly what I needed to boost my confidence for The Oz Marathon on 04.16.11 in Olathe, KS!

At the time of this post, the race is just over 5 days away. Totally excited and ready for it!

The Water Bottle Secret

Does anyone else have a Nathan water belt? Don't you hate how difficult it is to clean around the spouts of the lids? It seems like they are always covered in grime or slime. I'll bet you didn't know you could do THIS:

It was an accidental discovery the other day when I used a little too much force to open the lid before placing it in the dishwasher.

I'm so happy! I may be taking a cheap toothbrush to my bottle tops to give them a little Spring cleaning!

Medal on Metal

What do you do with YOUR medals?

Race medal + magnet + super glue = commemorative magnets!

The Long Run

I love sleeping in. Getting up at 6am on Saturdays to do my long run is not an easy thing for me, and I've been doing it now for well over a year. In order to stay in bed as long as possible, I set out everything I'll need the night before. This weekend's long run is one I've been looking forward to for quite a while with both excitement and anxiety. 20 miles....the longest run before tapering for the Marathon on 4/16 and also a new distance record for me. We did 18 a few weeks ago and it was a particularly difficult run for me with some knee pain and a little limping at the end!

The Fuel

I have learned that most things worth doing come with a little opposition.

Enter: a severe thunderstorm that starts at 3am Saturday morning. With no end to the rain in sight, we were determined to run anyway. We DID delay our start for 2 hours to allow the hail and lightning portion of the storm to pass.

The Weather

We headed out to do 2 laps of this 10 mile route and ended up reversing the direction for the 2nd lap just to mix it up a little.

The Route

I'm not gonna lie. The conditions were brutal. We were soaking wet within the first few miles and our socks gushed with every step. Temps were right around freezing the the freezing rain stung our faces. But we'd decided that we were going to kill this run no matter what, so we may as well enjoy it. The rain eased up a bit in the second lap, which did not go unnoticed. We were extremely grateful for a reprieve and to be dealing just with 20+mph wind that was dry!

We told each other that the nice thing about doing this run in extreme conditions was knowing that race day would be better/easier. Not only were we super ecstatic to finish our run in <4 hours, we couldn't believe how good we felt. We finished strong, running the inclines, and felt like we definitely could've run 6 more miles if it were race day. That Friday visit to the chiropractor was just what I needed!

The Time

We've been using a White Oak Gas Station as our home base to fill water bottles, use the bathroom, etc., so buying a Diet Coke after the run was the least I could to patronize the business, right?

These girls just ran 20 miles!

We were soaking wet, so we went immediately to Chick-fil-A and stuffed our faces with salty chicken noodle soup and fries!

Next Saturday is the Bentonville Half Marathon, where I will not be setting any records after pushing myself to 20 miles this week, but will very much enjoy the taper. And the next Saturday we get to do our favorite 8 mile run.

Have I told you how much I love the taper?

Insult to Injury

Shortly after my last post I ended up at the Ortho to examine knee pain I was having. Turned out to be a very tight IT band, hamstring and hip flexors. He recommended physical therapy for 4 weeks (until after the marathon), primarily to help me get it all stretched out. I also realized that if I go to the chirpractor and get an adjustment before a long run, I have ZERO knee pain! My right hip keeps popping out of alignment, due to the too tight muscles mentioned above, which causes friction (pain) on my knee. If I get aligned, the run goes great. So, we're stretch, stretch, stretching right now and getting an adjustment every Friday before the Sat long run.

The very same day I saw the Ortho specialist (3/15) I hit a deer on the highway on my way home from work. It really did a number on my car, which just spent 10 days in the shop getting repaired. It was about a week before I started to notice any neck/upper back pain. And when I did, I figured it was just due to poor running form, since my knee/hip was wacky. Then I finally went to the chiropractor again today and upon first touching my back for an adjustment, said, "Wow, what happened? You have a pretty good case of whiplash."

Duh. He said it's normal for it to take some time to present itself after the initial injury. I guess I hit that poor deer pretty hard. So, the insult to injury is that I am also nursing the left side of my back and neck with ice/ibuprofen.

I've worked way too hard for way too long to not see the marathon through in 3 weeks. And with my doctor's permission, that is exactly what I intend to do! I'm not running for a PR. I am running to finish and have fun along the way....and I am healthy enough to do that.

Tripped Up

Now that the marathon is only 6 weeks away, I'm paranoid that I'm going to get sick or get injured.

Example: Walking down a flight of concrete stairs at the Fairmont, I thought about how much it would hurt and how many bones I would likely break if I fell down them.

Monday night, walking back to my hotel room, I stepped on the edge of a pothole in heels. I didn't really twist my ankle, but I did notice that it kind of hurt when I did it. I forgot about it.

Fast forward to my run today. My ankle was so sore! I'd planned to run 4, but started thinking about cutting it short at 2.5. I toughed it out for the first 2 miles and suddenly it had worked itself out or loosened up to the point that it didn't hurt anymore. In fact, it felt so much better, I considered going for 5 or 6. But, the little paranoid voice in my head told me it probably really did need a little rest and recovery before my run tomorrow. 4 easy, sunny miles it was!

Fuel

One of the tricky things to figure out for long runs is when, how, what to fuel your body with.

I typically don't require any fuel for only 6-7 miles. But, if I'm running 8+ miles I usually need fuel. For a Half Marathon, I'm usually good with a couple of GU energy gel packets. I only run for about 2.5 hours, so I don't need any real food to keep me going.

Now that we're getting into higher mileage (16, 18, 20) in our marathon training, we're going to have to start fueling with more than GU to get through. It's tough to think of anything that sounds good to eat while running, other than fruit snacks.

Some people eat dried fruit and nuts. Others pack a peanut butter sandwich.

Any ideas? What works for you? How often do you fuel and what do you eat?