WORKOUT – Ran outside 1 hr 3 mins/7.1 miles
I’m beginning to like running without music on easier, recovery days. This run ended with a 1/2 mile hill climb and then a 1/2 mile descent. Pretty tasty.
What wasn’t tasty was the Clif energy gel I had before the run. I didn’t have dinner last night (had a late lunch) so I knew I’d need a little somethin’ somethin‘ for this run. These things are rancid. I’ve said it a gajillion million times.
You are better off taking your money, cleaning your toilet with it and then eating it. If I could say one thing on my tombstone, it’d be this:
You better believe I made that just for you. From this website. Let’s get on with the show, shall we? This race recap will further explain Saturday’s photo essay post.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
WAY TOO FAST. These are words I generally use only for Kate Hudson‘s dating style, but today that is what I was. But let’s start from the beginning…
-Ex-husband Chris Robinson
-Owen Wilson
-Dax Shepard
-Lance Armstrong
-Alex Rodriguez
Whoops, I meant the beginning of the race morning.
The race and morning of was just plain weird; I had great results, but it was all out of routineand strange. I wasn’t really hyped to run this race and thought about not doing it for a split second.
I didn’t plan on “racing” or trying to PR since I have another half tomorrow (Sunday) and a full next weekend so I was feeling really lackadaisical about the whole thing. weird. My time goal was 1:45-1:50, not pushing too hard. I’d rather do better in the upcoming marathon than this race. But let’s back it up even more.
I woke up at 3:30am and couldn’t fall back asleep, weird, so I got up. I had my coffee and then my stomach started to feel a little queasy so I had a FiberOne bar. Of all the stinkin’ bars I could have chosen!
Fiber bar or not, I didn’t do my “thing”, which had never not happened before on race morning. How’s that for a double negative? Poo or not, I had to get ready.
I had layed out my stuff last night with 2 different outfits, one if I felt skinny and poo-less and one if I felt fat and poo-ful. I never do this which makes it all stranger. Guess which one I chose?
Man, I even look constipated. Brought along a throwaway race shirt:
Got to the race at 7am, an hour before start time, which was way too early. So I sat in my car and talked to my ma for awhile. Walked around, went to the bathroom, nothing.
I brought some foodstuff with me. Normally I eat a Clif bar 45 mins-1 hr before the race. Since I had eaten that other bar, I wasn’t hungry. So my pre-race eats got all weirded up. I ate the peanut toffee buzz bar 5 mins before the start.
Side note: I was really stoked to try this flavor. It has caffeine, toffee, and peanuts. Awesome! not. pretty blah. weird. (I didn’t take the GU because I didn’t think I was running hard enough to need it; again, weird. and deranged.)
So the race starts. It benefits Students Run LA, which is program that offers “at risk” students the opportunity to train and run the LA Marathon. Cool, except that all the kids started at the front. But it was no big deal to me because I wasn’t running for time.
The first 5 miles were easy, breezy, covergirl. For the first mile I had to do a lot of weaving to get around people and get in a pace, but other than that, things were good. I wasn’t looking at my garmin. Just running hard but it didn’t even feel hard.
At around mile 8 I started wondering if I could break 1:40; up until then I hadn’t even taken the race seriously. But then at mile 9 I had to go to the bathroom. bad. So I did the unthinkable and stopped at a porta potty. Besides when I ran a half injured in May, I had never stopped in a race before. It was weird, kinda twilighty and not the Robert Pattinson kind. I could hear all the runners go by while I was squatting in a stinky, steamy poop container.
So I get out of there as soon as possible and keep pushing. I start looking at my garmin obsessively and thinking maybe I can PR but I won’t break 1:40. I was hauling poopy booty. To cut to the chase, I officially finished in 1:39:56. 9th in my age group, 7:38 pace. Overall place #272. Now, that was weird.
Check out those hairy arms…. Oh, and I’ve been having stomach issues all day today. Let’s just say I could fly a kite with the gas that’s coming out. mmm, yeah.
One last thing: When I PR’ed my last half in 1:40:55 I felt like I gave absolutely everything I had. Those 55 seconds could be 55 hours because I layed it all out. In this race, even though I ran nearly a minute faster, I feel like I could have done way better. I mean, I stopped to take a dump! Now that’s weird.
