Runnin in Da Rain!!!

Today was my big day for my 25k race!! I have been waiting for this for soooo long!! I felt ready for it even though I haven't done much long running as of recent. I made sure EVERYTHING was in order. Got up in plenty of time, had BREAKFAST which did not include a muffin!! Just a protein bar and some yogurt. Tried for some coffee, but the cheap hotel (HoJo) had a broken coffee maker. I swear, this hotel was really GHETTO!! They had karyoke night and was blasting music til 2am... I'm on the second floor and hear everything. People drunk in the parking lot making loud noise. But it didn't let it faze me. What did faze me was the lightning and thunderstorms all night!!

I get to the race in enough time to get a sufficient warmup. The sun had started to break, but it was a little chilly... but I dont mind that. Come time for the 25k race... I line up at the 7:30/mile pace group. NO NO NO!! I'm going to start low and go slow!! So the gun starts. It was kinda weird, there was like 4 start mats and some didnt have any wires. Didnt know when to actually start my Garmin. But the start was SOOO crowded. I tried to go slow, but my pace was still around 7:30'ish. Then outta no where, the dark clouds came over and it started pouring rain... I mean POURING!! I could barely see 20 feet in front of me. I wore my Fastwitch 3 shoes (of course it always rain when I do and my feet got soaked by mile 3).

The course had some major flooding, so they had to divert the course a little to avoid it. That turned out to be horrible!! They detoured us to the "rolly-polly's". If Boston is anything like this course, then I am going to have second thoughts about running that!! All we did all day was go up down up down up down up down up down...... U die going up the hills, then recover during the downhill only to get wore out again going up!! These were not just simple hills, they lasted like half mile each!! There was one hill at mile 2-3 that was a killer... but we got to recover during mile 4-5. And I have run in the rain before, but this was rediculous!!!!! Puddles everywhere!! But I figured, if I had to do it, everybody else was doing it and feeling the same thing too.

I felt really good through most of the race. I now know that I MUST get in consistant speedwork and have to build my endurance more by doing longer runs if I'm going to compete at this long distance stuff. No more of these 6 mile runs here and there. I was planning on eventually catching up to the 7:30 group, but the pacer just disappeared. When we did the turnaround, I saw the 7:00 group and was looking for the 7:30 to guage how far behind I was, and he was not there... maybe I missed him. But it sucked, because I was using that to determine my ultimate place. I could have used him after mile 12, because from then to the end, I was like "Uh... when is it going to end?? I'm soooo ready for it to be over!!!" And during that stretch, I think this was part of the diversion, because it had so many turns, like every block, and we went thru a residential area. Just an aside... why do people SMOKE in the audience knowing that we need all the clean air we can get while running... RUDE!!

These are the Garmin splits... I'm sure they are off a little
Mile-1 7:31
Mile-2 7:23
Mile-3 7:59 (Oh this hill is killing me... the rain!! Where's an ark when u need 1)
Mile-4 7:39
Mile-5 7:02 (There IS a God, thank you for the downhill)
Mile-6 7:23 (Took a Gu... still raining hard, feeling an upchuck... nope not letting it happen again... fight it off, it mental strictly mental)
Mile-7 7:26 (Just more of the same rolly-polly)
Mile-8 7:32 (Run time is exactly 1hr and some change... another Gu... chocolate "yukk")
Mile-9 7:39
Mile-10 7:45 (Run time 1:15 and some change... Ok, I'm starting to feel it now... fun is over)
Mile-11 7:42 (More of the same)
Mile-12 7:36 (Wow, I ran that pace, sure did FEEL like it 2!!)
Mile-13 7:47 (Run time is 1:38:25, per Garmin... I'm really not liking how I'm feeling)
Mile-14 7:50 (Ok, wuzzup with all these turns... can I get a strait-a-way PLEASE??)
Mile-15 7:51 (Oops, I havent took a drink in like 5 miles... I am feeling dizzy, really dizzy)
Last 0.5'ish 8:07 (I bring it in, nearly collapse at finish, I NEED something to drink... I feel like i'm going to faint!!)

Ha, they get all nervous at the finish bringing me a wheelchair and stuff, I'm like "Bring me something 2 drink, not a wheelchair u clowns!!" Well, I did stumble into the fence, LOL, so they had to be a lil worried. My goal was to get under 2hrs and my final time was 1:59:39. When I turned the corner and saw the timer saying 2 hours, I was like "Shoot!!! Another letdown", but that was gun-time, not run-time. So that motivated my slothful tail to sprint the last 200 meters, dizzy and all.

I'm ok with the results... I'm not happy that I got 10th place!! I was in the Clyde Division and the "horses" showed up again!! Here is a link to the top 25... and Here is the link to my official time... hmm, can u say "U NEED ENDURANCE"?? It seems that the competition is just getting better... last year my time would have gotten like 6 or 7th place. Time to up my game. I'm going to start the Daniel's Marathon Training Plan, but take some time off just to rest and do short races until summer... and I run on...