A friend of mine posted about this race on Facebook. There was a 30k option which I knew would be around 18.6 miles and I had a 22 mile long run scheduled for that weekend so I thought it would be perfect! The race was in Carthage which was about a 40 minute drive from my parents' house so we stayed the weekend with them. The race started at 8am so I got up at 6 to get ready and do a short yoga video. Then I ate my breakfast and drank some coffee on my drive to the race. It was raining when I woke up and rained my whole way there. I checked my email and Facebook before leaving the house and they hadn't sent any updates so I assumed the race was on as planned. When I got to the race start I again checked my email and Facebook. There were no updates so I got out and picked up my bib and headed out for my planned warm up to get extra miles in before the race. I finished my 2 miles and made it back to the start line a couple minutes before the race start which was perfect, but no one was really at the start so I asked someone and they said the race start had been postponed by 30 minutes. The downside of that was that I got soaked during my pre-race miles and I had already used my inhaler. I didn't think to pack spare clothes to change into to race in because I assumed it would rain during the race as well, but I did have a change of clothes for after the race. It sprinkled a bit during the first few miles of the race, but then stopped. I could have been mostly dry, but was instead soaking wet.
The course was an out and back for the 15k so for the 30k, we ran it twice. My plan was to start out around 9:00 pace and slowly drop the pace as I ran. I was using this as a training run more than as a race, but also wanted to test out my pace plan for the Chicago Marathon and see how I felt in the later miles since my past 2 marathons my legs fell apart at the end of the race. My hope is that if I run a super conservative first half, I can finish feeling strong. Looking at race pictures from the end of this race and seeing video my mom took in the last mile, I'm thinking I may just fall apart at the end of a long race no matter what. I can see that the longer I run on my bone spurs and the more my heel/ankle start hurting, the more off my form gets. In the pictures you can see my left leg landing weird and even twisted oddly. I think even when I don't notice it hurts, my body starts compensating and trying to take pressure off my bone spur area. Which makes sense because after long runs, the outside edge of my left foot is sore because I must land more on it to protect my injury area.
We took off at the start and I felt really comfortable. When my watch beeped for an 8:35 mile, I decided to just go with it because I felt so good. Mile 2, 3, and 4 were 8:33, 8:35, and 8:32. I had pulled alongside a woman and was running with her for about a mile before she turned around because she was in the 10k. From that point on, I ran the entire race solo. I decided to drop the pace a little bit for the next 4 miles. I made it to the turn around and realized the way out was a slight incline and I would have a slight decline on the way back which would be nice for the finish. Miles 5-8 were 8:28, 8:31, 8:21, and 8:26. I was excited to see people ahead of me as they were headed back out on their 2nd out and back. I saw I was 2nd overall female and 4th overall. The first place woman was leading the race with a nice margin. I made it to the turn around at 9.38 miles. I expected to see Ty, my parents, and the kids because they planned to come out to spectate, but they hadn't made it yet.
I was still feeling really good, but getting pretty thirsty. The course map showed water stops every 2 miles so I decided not to carry water, but I should have. I forgot one of the water stops was at the finish so I just turned around and didn't run past the turn to go to the water table. I regretted that! I was looking forward to a water stop on the way back that was out of water so that was disappointing. Miles 9-12 were 8:27, 8:24, 8:33, and 8:37. I scrapped the idea of dropping the pace for each set of 4 miles because I was starting to fade a little bit. I didn't feel rough, but just not good enough to keep dropping the pace. Miles 13 and 14 were 8:32 and 8:34. I was excited to turn around so I could run downhill. It was the wildest thing, when I made it to the cone and took the sharp turn around it, my legs suddenly felt horrible. Up until then, I was confident my last section would be the fastest. At that point, I just focused on finishing. I could see the guy in 3rd place ahead of me was fading and I focused on closing the gap and catching him, which I was able to do. Miles 15-18 were 8:42, 9:07, 9:20, and 9:24. I just kept fading a little more each mile. With around a mile to go I saw Carter and my parents which was a really nice pick me up! Then closer to the finish, I saw Ty and Elise. Elise wanted to run to the finish with me which helped me pick it up. I ran the last 0.7 in 8:54 pace with her. With my warm up, I ended the day with 22.1 miles.
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| You can see how wet my shorts are and while I did get sweaty, it was mostly from running my early miles in a downpour. |
I finished the race in 2:42:25 which was 8:40 pace. I was 3rd overall, 2nd overall female, and 1st in my age group. My splits weren't quite as bad as I thought. My first half was 1:19:30 and my 2nd half was 1:22:53, so I definitely slowed down but not as much as it felt like I had! When I went to change into dry clothes, I discovered I had chafed so badly on my inner thighs, they were bleeding. It was a level of chafing I have never experienced before. Ty was blown away with how bad it looked. I've never run over 20 miles soaking wet before and if I ever do it again, I will make sure to wear spandex shorts! I had to wear spandex for runs on the 3 days after this race because the chafing was so sore!
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