Sunday morning I headed to pick up Ruthie and head down to Seabrook for the Seabrook Lucky Trails Marathon and Half Marathon. When we got out of the car it was wiiiiiiiiiiiiindy and cooooooooold! Like really, really windy. Annoying enough to bother you on the run. I was very thankful I wasn't biking that day though and felt for all my friends doing their 86 mile ride in that wind.
The race is on a loop course of running trails that wind through the little community of Seabrook. It is pretty neat - you are in the woods at one point, then running on a little wooden bridge over a marsh at another, and then all of a sudden all you see ahead is ocean. The half marathon was 2 loops on the course and the full was 4 loops. I had decided early on that I was going to run the 2 loops of the half race and then head back out for a 3rd loop to get my 20 mile long run in.
The race started at 7:30 and was pretty uneventful...until mile 3. I had been running behind Mark (one of my dad's coworkers) and had planned to say hi at some point, but decided I shouldn't try to catch up because he was running faster than I needed to. Just after mile 3 I was just a few steps behind he and the lady he was running with (turned out to be Melissa who used to work with my mom as well. I'd heard lots about her, but never met her) and Mark went down, hard. I came up and said "hi" expecting to give him a hand to get up and he'd be back on his way. Well, he didn't hop right up. In fact he stayed down for a good while and said he thought he had sprained his ankle. We sent for help in both directions, but were in the middle of the trail quite a ways from the road and didn't know how/if someone would get to us. So, Melissa (who is smaller than I am) and I decided to pick him up and haul him to the nearest road. Several people stopped and asked if we needed anything and were very nice. The three of us hobbled up the path and by then we could see that his ankle was huge. We probably took him about half a mile and finally were able to get him up to the road and sat him in a chair next to a cop car. People kept offering to help out and let me and/or Melissa go ahead with our race, but I said I had to run 20 miles that day and certainly wasn't racing, so I didn't mind the "break" a bit.Melissa and I finally left him when medical help arrived. She and I ran together for the next 3 miles or so and she was really pushing the pace - I was impressed! She finally realized who I was when I repeated my last name and thought I was just some total stranger coming to help, not realizing I knew Mark and that she and my mom were friends. All in all, I think we only lost 10-15 minutes over the whole ordeal, so it was absolutely no big deal. I had already been instructed to NOT PR, so I took care of that no problem! I lost Melissa after the first loop and headed back out. At the back stop on the second loop I discovered they had Girl Scout Cookies and life savers! I took 2 cookies and shoved them in my mouth and stored 2 life savers in my sports bra for later. I gave up candy for lent, but life savers were my "fuel" for the race, so it is ok, right? I decided the cookies would be my motivation for getting back out there for the 3rd loop. I had to make it all the way back to the cookies to get to 20 miles for the day! I also had to figure out some other sort of nutrition because I had 400 calories in my little handheld bottle for the whole day. However, I gave Mark some advil on 2 different occasions and offered up my super concentrated infinit for him to wash it down with. So I spent a good while trying to figure out how many of my calories I had given away and how many I should replenish with cookies and life savers!
I crossed the "finish line" (I put it in quotes, since it was 13 miles into my 20 mile run for the day) right around 2:19. I figured I would run around a 2:10, so I was right where I wanted to be with my good deed of the day. I dropped my medal in my bag and headed back out. I couldn't believe that I didn't think twice about quitting. I'd been by myself for all but 3 miles and was heading out to be by myself for 7 more miles without thinking about it. I never run by myself, but I'm getting better at it. I'm proud of my determination and lack of excuses this year. I was also running for those darn cookies! I grabbed my watch after running the 2 loops and set it to do intervals of 4 minutes/1 minute of running and walking. I hadn't done any walking intervals for the first 13 and decided it may be good for the last 7 miles, especially considering I was running way faster than I would have been on a normal 20 mile training run. Towards the end I started to hurt and started to feel like I had run a long way at marathon pace or faster....wait - that is because I had! I finished up though, proud of myself for hanging tough that long and for not giving up. It had turned into a beautiful day, despite the wind, and I was looking forward to relaxing by the finish line with my fellow running friends and just having a good time. I'm not sure what my final average mile pace for the day was, but I think it ended up being right at 10:00 min/mile or a tiny bit slower, but that is huge! I tried to do the math to take out the time I spent stopped with Mark, but decided it wasn't that important. However I want to do the math, it was certainly my fastest 20 mile training run ever.
Team Beer Runners - Danny, Ruthie, Angus, Joe (ran the marathon relay, certain they came in second, plan to retain legal counsel to protest the results)
I was hurting quite a bit more after this run than after my 18 miles last weekend, but I was running on already-biked-on legs and running way faster, so its all good. By this morning I'm already pretty much back to normal. I'm not so sure about Mark though - I need to call my dad and check in on him. (update - apparently nothing was broken, which is good, but it was one huuuuge ankle when we left him).
After hanging out at the race for a few hours I headed towards the crew that had been out biking and found Randy and Shellie. They were a bit (ok a lot) wind blown, but both in good spirits and looking strong after their ride. After lunch at Zoe's and my favorite hunk o' chocolate cake I headed home for a quick nap before Hurricane Kiehne (my sister and the girls) invaded my apartment.
As I'm sitting here Monday morning, I'm trying to figure out why my neck/shoulders/back hurt soo bad. They didn't hurt Sunday morning, and usually only hurt after a bike ride. I just had a huge "duh" moment after thinking hard about this all morning...they hurt from carrying Mark! Turns out I got a full body workout yesterday!
Comments
nice run...
Great job girl!