Race Recap: Fox Cities Half Marathon (+7)

Sunday started before the ass crack of dawn. As I rolled myself out of bed, I questioned myself...WHY am I doing this??? Oh yeah, because I'm CRAZY!! It was 4am and I had to get myself ready to be at Sarah's to start our run at 5am.

The Half was starting at 7am and we wanted to leave ourselves time for an easy run to the Start and conveniently Sarah lives close to the Finish. We started by running to the finish and headed over towards the start. My brain was very confused. I am not an early morning person and the only time I've run in the dark it's been nighttime. Granted, for most people it was nighttime but I just couldn't wrap my head around it. We didn't walk much because it was freezing when we started. Literally, it was probably a few degrees above freezing.

Miles 1 - 6.9 10:34, 11:14, 11:12, 11:36, 11:40, 12:24, 10:58

Can you tell which mile we stopped to eat GU?? 

We made it to the Start and metup with Kimba, Kim, Matt (all first timers for the marathon) and Kathy, Megan and my cousin Nikki. The marathon spectators were Nick, Rachel & Kevin whom we would see at mile 2.5 where the Half and Full split. We were all freezing at the start as you can see in this pic. Sarah & I after the first 7, good job Rachel of capturing the pre-race nerves of Matt & Kim in the background.

Miles 1 - 8 (8-15) 10:08, 9:57, 9:29, 9:37, 9:38, 9:25, 9:09, 9:30

Ok, so not the usual breakup of a race but it works well for me this way. I started off the run with Nikki & Sarah. We were all trying to take it easy at the start and not begin too fast. I really liked that we didn't have to fight through the crowd much and did very little weaving. It was enjoyable and the miles were flying by. The hardest part of this was remembering when I needed to eat GU. Nikki and I kept on cruising and I would glance at my watch and freak out. (I shouldn't be running this fast, I am going to BONK!! That's OK, it's just practice at hitting the WALL!?!?) Yes I actually rationalized it this way during the run. We ran/danced to Tootsie Roll and just had fun out there! I finally started feeling like it was difficult and I had to stop at mile 8 to eat my GU. I knew I would lose my running buddy and the last 5 miles would be a mental battle.

Miles 9-13 (15-20) 10:53, 9:28, 10:49, 10:16, 9:27

Ok, this was really hard. My legs felt like dead weight and I just willed myself to keep going. I knew exactly where the course ran at this point and knew just how much was left. I took it one mile at a time and told myself I would walk again at 10 and maybe one other time. I timed it so the 2 bridges we had to go over I walked up and started running on the downhill, cause at this point starting again was not easy. I just kept trudging forward, talked to a few random people and willed myself to the finish. I saw my overall pace was slowly creeping up and I thought I might lose my chance to PR. I just kept pushing and realized when I was on the last mile that as long as I didn't slow my pace I would make it.

FINAL TIME: 2:08:50 (a minor PR by a little over a minute but it still counts!)

Glad to be done, and all I could do at this point was sit down & put my flip flops on!

Now that I was done, I was excited to go cheer Kim on. We hobbled our way back to the car and we headed out on the course just shortly after mile 21 and then back to the finish area. I had prepared a few signs for use along the course. Here are the 3 funnier signs I made and then one motivational one I used towards the finish.





This sign was especially for Kim, we've managed to be attacked twice!!



There were not alot of photographers on the course (basically only around the start & last 1-1.5 miles) and the pictures they got were pretty good, but they are not very easy to copy due to the background they plastered all over them. Maybe I will have to break down and buy the best one.

Overall it was a great day as everyone finished!! (speedy Kimba ran a BQ!) I was glad to see friends & family out there with me and excited for my marathon day which is now fast approaching. I was a little jealous that I wasn't doing it Sunday.

I'm still feeling a little lethargic this week. I'm definitely glad taper is here as I'm taking my runs easy this week.