We lucked out with a gorgeous morning.  I had no time goals for this race, so I just jumped the fence and started wherever I could. Yes, apparently I missed some signage that instructed where to actually enter the corral?

Roxie was my partner in crime for the fence-jumping.

I was a little jealous of those in the seeded corrals. (There was a time when I actually qualified for a seeded corral! I will do it again!) Look at that looooong row of portalets!

Ryan Gosling showed up to wish me good luck as we started. We started out by the stadium on Gator Bowl Blvd. and headed towards downtown.

Zigged and zagged a few streets until we were by Burro Bar headed towards the Main Street Bridge.

You can see the Green Monster in the distance. That’ll be coming up between miles 7 & 8.

Don’t look down!

I love kids holding race signs. How awesome is it that both their mom and dad are running the race?

BEAKER! I was neck and neck with him previously in a Gate River Run, so it was cool to see someone running in that getup again!

In San Marco, I made my first Streaker kill. (Kill = passing someone)

My favorite part of the race is when we run on River Road. The water is so close to the road! The water & sky look different every year.

Further into San Marco, I had my first mimosa sighting of the morning. There were also people handing out a wide variety of snacks like oranges, frozen grapes, vodka soaked gummy bears, and jello shots. I do not have a stomach of steel, so I always pass these up.

I just don’t know how they do it. Maybe there’s just cotton balls in there or a balloon filling the pack up?

Funny, I was JUST thinking how I could go for a good grilled sausage and “BAM!” that sign appeared…

I ran into a few friends cheering along the way! Thanks Ryan, Jennifer, Erin, and crew for coming out another year to cheer us fools on!

Caron was cheering this year too!

Finally, I made it to the Mile 7 Banana!

Who needs Disney Princesses? We have Bananas and Monkeys!

Headed along Atlantic Blvd. towards the Green Monster & mile 7/8.

Surprised to see my friend, Joe, cheering everyone on!

Finally found Chris from WJXT at the foot of the Green Monster!

Started the ascent..

One nice part of the Green Monster is the view of downtown. Another view which seems fairly different every year.

You would think the descent would be really easy, but honestly, it’s a bit tiring. You can’t just let go and tumble down the bridge or you’ll end up out of control. (I saw someone bite it and break their arm her previously) You need to actually hold back a bit.

The end is near!! At this time last year, I literally thought I was going to yak. Not too bad this year!

I made it! I completed my sixth gate river run and headed straight to the post-race party. Health Source Magazine had spoiled me with a few passes to the VIP party for Adam and I. This was definitely worth it. While I never found my way to the beer, I did enjoy a few frozen treats and a flavored beverage. It had bubbles, so I was happy.

What made it all worth it though was the CHAIRS!! I could finally sit down.

And just like that, my SIXTH Gate River Run IN A ROW is completed!!

I tweeted something similar to what I’m about to say immediately after the race as I wandered aimlessly from the finish line to the post race celebration at the fairgrounds, but I gotta say it here.

Huge, huge hat tip to 1st Place Sports for this year’s race. They clearly put a lot of effort into trying to improve race operations this year and streamline the starting line and finish line and it definitely paned out.

This year, they introduced a staggered start for everyone. I thought this really helped prevent the initial mad dash and over crowding that’s usually experienced for the first two miles. It was still crowded, but I wasn’t bumping elbows with the runner next to me or having someone step on the heel of my shoe (both of which have happened in previous years).

What I was MOST impressed and thankful for was the finish line. True, I felt a bazillion times better at the finish this year than I had the previous two years, but their improvements also helped significantly. The past two years, once you crossed the finish line, you were forced through fences that funneled you to a narrow row where you would get your water, race towel, and finishers medal. This created a crazy bottleneck. Last year I was totally wiped, and was honestly even afraid I was going to faint. Being crowded into a bottleneck just to get out was almost terrifying (at least if I HAD passed out, I probably would have just fallen on someone next to me instead of the ground).

Regardless, THIS year, after I crossed the finish line, there was tons of open space. I was able to walk freely at a hobble of my liking and grab a water and towel from volunteers before I exited the corralled area and grabbed my finishers medal. It’s a good thing they use the bike racks to corral the area off, because it keeps the spectators out of that space.

So a “Great job!” to 1st Place Sports and team for the excellent coordination of this year’s race. I can’t wait to see what next year’s race brings!

The post Gate River Run 2013 appeared first on Starpulp.

A little over a year ago, I headed into Timed Exercise early on a Monday morning (ambitious back then, wasn’t I?) to hear non-stop chatter about a relay race. It sounded like a lot of fun and everyone was so excited about it, I really wanted a chance to prove myself in something like that. Unfortunately, I realized they were all chatting about the race because it had just happened the previous Saturday. Bummer.

So, I mentally put this race on my calendar. Next chance I had in front of a computer, I Googled until I figured out what race it was. One To Grow On (aka Wolfson 55) is a 55 mile race. You can run the entire thing as a solo ultra runner or form a relay of 5 – 11 teammates. The course is a 5 mile loop through downtown Jacksonville going over the Main Street and Acosta bridges. For the ultra, you would run that 5 mile loop 11 times. For the relay, you can run it as many times as you want, as long as your team has a minimum of 5 team members, and the team completes 11 loops total.

So, knowing I had a year, I managed to put a team together. Many of the runners were from the Ragnar team I had just run on, so that definitely helped out a lot!

Here was our official roster & running order:

1. Adam (bf)
2. Roxie (Ragnar)
3. Judy (Friend from Timed Exercise, Subaru Half & Jax Bank Half)
4. Amanda (Ragnar)
5. Brooke (Ragnar)
6. Stacey (Me!)
7. Leif (Ragnar)
8. Ryan (coworker of Roxie’s)
9. Monica (Ragnar)
10. Stacey (my second lap!)
11. Roxie  (second lap!)

The race started at the crack of dawn (also known as 6 am) so Adam and I found ourselves downtown around 5:30 am to stake out our space for the day with our 10 x 10 tent.

Ahh doesn’t that just look like a luxurious space to spend the next 10 hours or so?

While we were setting up the tent and gathering, we would occasionally see an ultra runner pass by. At this time I’m estimating they were rounding out their very first 5 mile loop. The Ultra runners start at 5 am. I’m assuming this is so the race director can be assured to go over all the rules and speak with each ultra runner individually since it’s such a huge undertaking, and there is a lot to know. Could you imagine running 55 miles and 22 bridges? Yikes!

It was easy to tell an ultra runner from a regular runner because they wore bright yellow vests. Such a great idea since they most likely need more cheering and assistance for what they are accomplishing.

Finally it was time. All the relay runners gathered near the starting line to listen to the brief instructions from the race director.

Tell it to us, Doug! Lots of rules. (not) We were done in about 2 minutes.

Adam took off as our first runner in the relay. Shortly afterwards, the sky lightened up into a beautiful sunrise. I can’t think of a better way to watch the sun rise than during a run!  (Ok maybe on a boat… with mimosas…)

After we got things started, other teammates started trickling in. Amanda surprised everyone with a box of donuts. (Which I avoided as I’m still in shock from the Krispy Kreme Challenge I ran in June.)

Nom nom nom…

Judy was the first to pick up the box and dive in. She has a slight addition problem.

They didn’t nickname her “Sprinkles” for nothing. I call that “stomach of steel”!

Brooke found our tent without a problem.

Our setup was fairly simple, though some teams went all out with game-day-style tailgates (minus the beer, of course!)

Mid race, we started hearing this super loud noise. Looking up, we realized it was a helicopter buzzing around the top of the local CSX building downtown. It was there for about 5 minutes before we realized it was picking some large object up off the roof to set down in the parking lot next door. Very distracting.

Huge props to the race for their portolet setup! They even had a Purell station!!

At this point I started to get worried. Only one runner hadn’t shown up yet, and we were getting close to her leg of the race. Where was MONICA!?! Finally she showed up… physically at least.

Hmm. Maybe that explains this a bit? Yah, girl had a fun night out the night before. Time to rally & run!

That’s better!

When it wasn’t our leg of the race, everyone had fun relaxing. Some slept…

…while others relaxed.   (and recuperated from the night before…)

Great Race Signs:

There were some hilarious motivational signs throughout that I thought I would include.

I don’t get it.

How motivational.

The Timing Chip:

Ahh the good ol’ timing chip. We each wore the same timing chip that velcro’d around our leg.

This meant after a runner finished, they had to take it off their leg and put it on the next runners leg.

Easier said than done. Often someone else would offer a hand. It’s hard after finishing 5 miles to bend over and do that!

Let me tell you, that timing chip was SLIMY as the day wore on and the sun got hotter!

The 5 Mile Loop:

The course was actually a fairly easy 5 mile figure 8-style loop through downtown Jacksonville that took you over two bridges three bridges. Yeah.. I THOUGHT it was two, but they actually snuck in a third (evil) bridge.

The starting line was along the riverfront in between the Times Union Center and the Jacksonville Landing. This was great because it gave everyone plenty of room to setup, and we weren’t too far from solid food if needed.

To start, we ran east in front of the Jacksonville Landing, past their stage.

This took us under the Main Street Bridge and past the Hyatt.

About a mile out from the start, we just turned around and continued back in the same direction.

Shortly before the Main Street bridge, we took a right.

Hmm, something about that bridge doesn’t look quite right… any guesses?

Right at the foot of the bridge, we got a surprise with a few spectators cheering everyone on!

Reading from right to left..
Ultra Registration… $100
Running Shoes… $125
Watching YOU run the bridges…PAINLESS!

Isn’t that lovely?

Started the slow and steady trek up the Main Street bridge..

Only to find a bit of a traffic jam near the top.

Hmm. Guess this is what happens when the draw bridge goes up!

After a very short wait, we were off again.

To the right we could see our original starting position…

And to our left… the Green Monster known to cause a lot of stiff quads and cramped calves in the Gate River Run.

Because of this race also being an ultra, the “water stops” had a bit more gusto than normal. They handed out full bottles of water, bananas, m & m’s, crackers, cookies, pretzels, granola bars, chips, and even peanut butter and jelly sammies! I do NOT have a stomach of steel, so I passed on these treats. (uh.. and I wasn’t running the ultra so I left it all for those guys….)

Normally running in costume is not a big deal, but this wasn’t exactly a big race. There were several times along the course I could only see one or two other runners. This meant there were a lot of confused looks by pedestrians and onlookers for the two girls ahead of me running in super hero costumes!! It was quite fun to chase after them the whole loop.

And chase them I did right up the second bridge, The Acosta. The Acosta is typically my nemesis on training runs, but for this race, we ran along the sidewalk on the other side which is actually not quite as steep.

I was happy to say I made it up and over without a walk break. Crossing over the bridge, to our right, was where we started (just down to the right of the CSX building).

To our left, was the Florida Times Union Newspaper buildings, and the riverwalk… with the THIRD surprise bridge. DOH!

About this time, I’d made it to mile 3. Yay! Over halfway done (with this loop.. I was scheduled for two loops total).

We ran along the sidewalk (You can just see the Florida Times Union building to the left there).

Once we made it about a quarter of a mile down the road, we took two sharp left turns..

…which put us back on the riverfront headed back into downtown….

…and up onto that third surprise bridge. This bridge is okaaaay. It goes up a bit, then flattens out.. then goes up.. then flattens out etc several times which makes it a bit easier.. and a bit annoying…

Finally at the top… only to head back down. The down ramp is a big curly cue  that funnels you out onto the riverfront in front of the CSX building.

A quick dash past our tent, and I was pulling off my timing chip and strapping it onto Leif. Who am I kidding? Someone else ripped it off of me, and Leif put it on himself and took off. I was wiped!

After I finished my leg, I hung out, took a walk to Einstein Bagels for a sandwich, and relaxed. Oddly, my lower back started to ache. Typically my back doesn’t bother me, so this wasn’t good. I continued on and ran my second 5 mile loop a few hours later and was in PAIN!! Major pain. I essentially spent the entire 5 miles stopping every 10 feet or so and bending over to stretch my back (which did absolutely nothing)! Obnoxious, but I felt I had to finish or I’d be forcing someone else to run extra miles. OY! The picture above is me finishing the second leg in MAJOR PAIN trying my best to put a smile on. I wasn’t too successful.

Since the race, I took it easy for a few weeks and enjoyed a break from running. My lower back still bothers me a bit on occasion (almost 2 months later), but definitely not as much. Thankfully I’ve been able to start running again. I’m focusing on strengthening my back and core which should fully alleviate the pain as well as prevent future issues.

Towards the end of the day, the race directors setup the official Finish line in anticipation for the runners to complete their 11th lap.

Roxie completed our 11th lap and those of us that had hung around ran the last 100 years or so with her as a team.

I am bummed we didn’t get an official team photo, but with everyone’s different schedules, this was all that we could coordinate!

We definitely had a blast (aside from the uninvited back pain), and I look forward to putting together another team in 2014!

If you live close to Jacksonville and are interested in joining us in 2014, send me a message!!

The post One To Grow On “Wolfson 55” appeared first on Starpulp.

Adam, Roxie, and I met up at the start and took a group ‘clean’ photo…

…and a silly clean photo.

In typical ‘color race’ fashion, people had already begun warming up, throwing the color packets at each other that has been provided in the race packet.

Eventually everyone lined up… and waited..

and waited…

At one point, I heard the guy on the megaphone mention something about everyone starting in waves. Waves? I don’t recall hearing anything about wave starts before. Everyone was told the race would start at 9. I immediately got Adam and Roxie to follow me as we pushed our way to the front of the pack so we would get into the first wave.

Ahh that’s a little better. More people behind us than in front of us.

We managed to get significantly closer to the starting line and were released in the first wave. We had started out behind the Publix and ran towards the trails.

Once we were off, I began to see some really interesting costumes like white wings.

And a wedding dress?

This really puts a new swing on “trash the dress”!

By this point, we made it to the start of the trails near the Nocatee Splash Waterpark.

I could see the first color section ahead and knew it was a blue one!

Yup, definitely blue!

Once everyone was successfully ‘smurfed’, we continued on through the trails.

As we exited the trails, we saw our next color station, which was red and yellow.

It almost looked like this station was on fire with the way the red and yellow blended together into a fiery orange.

The road was reddish for quite a ways after that color station. We found ourselves sharing the road with local traffic, but the great thing is, there really isn’t that much traffic in that area there this early in the day and they had it well coned off.

Our third color station was upon us..

Bright green to start, red to finish.

I would say I was sufficiently colored as I crossed the finish line!

The Color in Motion 5k was a fun and successful race. I surprisingly loved the simple 5k course they setup.  I really hope Nocatee holds more races in the future!

The post Color in Motion 5k appeared first on Starpulp.

The first race in early October is the Marine Corps Half Marathon, the second is the Subaru Distance Classic Half Marathon on Thanksgiving, and the third is the Jacksonville Bank Half Marathon in mid December.

Here’s links to my previous race recaps of the series:

• Marine Corps Half Marathon
• Subaru Distance Classic Half Marathon

Just like all races, we lined up at the starting line before the sun even got out of bed.

I was unexpected to see how many people were dressed up in fun costumes!

Even fun shoes that looked like presents.

One benefit of running this race is that it’s also a full Marathon. They have several pacers in the race to help keep groups of people on track. These pacers just run the race at at their assigned time whether it’s a 4 hour marathon, 5 hour marathon, 5.5 hour marathon. If I know I want to run the race in say, 3 hours, I know to line up for the start of the race with the 6 hour balloon!

I started out with Judy who I ran the Subaru Half Marathon with and Roxie.

Roxie took off (that girl is fast!) at the start of the race and Judy and I stuck together almost the entire race. Around mile 2 or so (I think?), we came across my two favorite runners in Jacksonville, Tom and Becky White! So much fun to see them.

And of course Santa go into the running spirit too! Running in those boots is not cool though! I imagine he had a lot of blisters in the end. lol

Around mile 10, I was really hurting and just had to slow down. Judy was on fire, so I told her to go on ahead which she did. Regardless I pressed on. I really wanted to complete the trifecta. I was having a lot of issues running though. I have to admit, I was in a LOT of pain at the end of the race. It was stupid pain. One should not be in that much pain after running. I put on a fake smile and trotted around the track. I even heard them call my name out on the intercom. I heard Adam cheering for me. Once I crossed the finish line, I slunk over to the soccer field in the middle of the track and sat down. Pretty sure some tears were shed. In fact, I KNOW some tears were shed. This was the easy part. The next part was horrible. After sitting and pouting on the grass for about 10 minutes, I had to make my way to my car. Yeah, not pretty. I stopped several times along the way. My back was hurting me. My legs were seizing up. I literally could barely walk to my car, I was in so much pain. THIS has never, ever happened before. Hello, poor training!

I essentially hadn’t run since the Subaru Half, which had finished on a fairly positive note. Unfortunately, I had some minor surgery about a week after Subaru which made it nearly impossible to wear a sports bra. (No, I did not have a breast enhancement, silly!) I had stitches on my side that were right where the sports bra would typically go. Boy, oh boy, did that hurt! So I wasn’t able to do anything. The day of the race I pushed through the annoying pain to finish.

I did slightly injure my leg in the process. It took me until a month later at the Ragnar Relay to realize I was having IT Band Issues. At Ragnar, I rolled the bejeezus out of my hip, which really helped. Magically about a week after Ragnar, everything loosened up, and I was fine. At least now I know what that was all about and how to prevent it in the future.

After two unsuccessful attempts, I am thrilled to say these bad boys are officially mine. I FINALLY completed the Tri 2 B Tough. Now I can relax and enjoy Fall 2014 running new and different races… Purdue Half Marathon, maybe??

The post Jacksonville Bank Half Marathon 2012 appeared first on Starpulp.

• Ragnar: Miami to Key West Part 1
• Ragnar: Miami to Key West Part 2
• Ragnar: Miami to Key West Part 3

Meanwhile… we were seeing tweets and receiving texts about Monica who had apparently woken up delirious and motivated. At their van’s exchange where they had some time to rest, she decided to seek out all the vans that had tagged their van (written on the side of their van), and tag them back with a customized Chuck Norris quote.

Pretty funny, eh? This van was some sort of science van (I honestly can’t remember their team name)

That is NOT a drawing of the state of Florida on the side of that van…

After Bob crossed the street to meet us, he was done with his second leg. It was our van’s turn to relax. I believe we had about two hours. This is the point where we began leapfrogging with some runners skipping their assigned leg and running a leg at the same time as another teammate. (This is also the point where I may get things a little wrong because details are fuzzy…)

Our van headed off in search of IHOP. I would have passed the baton onto Monica, but she chose to skip her leg and run with Brooke later on to save us time. So the next leg of the race was actually Leif’s 7 mile bridge! Andrea had chosen to run with him (are you keeping up with all this??) so it was super awesome to drive by and see both of them running strong and tackling the beast! Honestly, this bridge looked loooooong, kinda boring, and really HOT. Being on the bridge, there was NO shade or tree cover. It seems to me to be one of those runs you enjoy afterwards knowing you accomplished it.

Our van stopped at IHOP, and as usual, they were slammed. There was a wait but wasn’t too painfully long. What WAS painful was how long it took us to get waters, menus, orders, food, check etc. Half our table got their food before the other half. I ended up slamming down a few last french fries after the rest of my team had finished and paid their checks. Hooooorible service. Plus, we were worried we were running late to meet up with Van 1! Since we were leapfrogging, vans had less downtime in between.

We headed to the next exchange and traffic was hooorible. I hadn’t mentioned it yet, but Bob had driven about 98% of the time so far. In fact, Bob was so awesome, he spoiled everyone by not only coordinating the rental of van 2, but he covered the cost of the van rental and gas. Holy moly!! THANK YOUUUUUUUUUUU Bob. Seriously appreciated. So at this point, traffic on A1A was bumper to bumper. I offered to Bob that we could pull over and swap (I was in the passenger seat at this point). He said no.. I started to doze off from the heat of the sun thru the windshield.. next thing I heard was him saying.. OK yea.. Chinese Fire Drill? SURE! That snapped me out of it. (Ragnar officials, stop reading at this point but know I was wearing my safety vest!) We came to a bumper to bumper stop. He hopped out, I hopped out, and suddenly I was behind the wheel of a 15 passenger van.

We drove to the exchange for a brief restroom break. It was some sort of school, this was Adam’s final 4 mile leg. Things were kinda nutty and super busy at this leg, so I unfortunately do not have a picture of him heading out either.

Stopped at one exchange and it was an adult bookstore. I should have gone inside & bought something to take advantage of the air conditioning. What’s the adult bookstore equivalent of a pack of gum, I wonder..

Next up was Roxie who had the pleasure of starting at the Adult Bookstore (I think this was her stop), then Amanda, then Melissa. This part was a blur. I don’t seem to have any photos (which really helps jog the memory).

Melissa hands off to Bob who took off on his final 3.5 leg of the race

Finally it was time for my final leg. We were setup in front of a gas station. Bob came in, slapped the slimy baton on my wrist, and I headed out. I started along the highway which quickly turned residential. I kept my sanity here by running a 4/1. So I ran for 4 minutes, then quickly walked for one minute and repeated. I eventually switched to a 2/1 which had pulled me through the Subaru Half Marathon a few months prior. I was so tired at this point, I just couldn’t keep the math in my head for a 4/1. I crossed a road and switched to a 1/1. I was surprised to realize I could actually run faster on the one minute spurts that I’d been previously running. Even more, I actually wanted to run faster. I also really looked forward to each walk break. I hadn’t brought water, so I was desperately looking for the water station which was supposed to be around mile 2.5/3.

About this time the scenery had changed & I was running on the waterfront. It was beautiful.

Came across the water table finally. The guy saw me dunp a cup of water over my head. He said he had a mister & volunteered to spray me. When I walked over I realized it was one of those yard insect sprayers. Gross!! I’m praying it had never been used before. I was too polite and had too little energy to protest. He sprayed me with insecticide-water & I pressed on.

Isn’t that sunset beautiful?? After I took this shot, the route took me away from the waterfront, and back onto streets & sidewalks. I was getting pretty close. I think I was about 2 miles away from the finish line at this point.

A few times I got a little worried that I’d lost the route because there weren’t that many RAGNAR directional signs along the way. (I was just being paranoid).

Because I was getting nervous, I pulled up the Find Friends app on my phone to make sure I was running towards my teammates who were waiting at the finish line. This app was a HUUUUGE help during the entire race. Several teammates downloaded the app so we could keep track of where they were along their routes. It was a huge help.

I saw a woman standing next to Ragnar street sign that had stopped blinking. When I came up she said “246″ into her walkee talkee. This meant I was close, really close! I have no idea where the “one mile left” sign was. I got a burst of energy & rounded the corner.

Everyone met me on the sidewalk before the finish line & we crossed together at the same time. I’d had them bring my team shirt so I could put it on beforehand. It was great to see everyone in their team shirts as designing & printing the shirts was one of the tasks I had been assigned.

After we crossed, Stephanie did her magic at a tent & came back with our medals. Talk about heavy! And they’re bottle openers!

Then we went to a cool looking restaurant on the water & got our free beers. Yuck! I’m sorry, Saltwater. I’m sure it’s typically a nice beer, but for someone that literally just finished running 6 miles, it was horrible. I didn’t want to tarnish my beer drinking reputation, so I TRIED to drink it, but it just wasn’t happening. We all decided to make our way to the hotel. I tossed my beer along the way.

Ahh we did it!!

Huge thank you to Stephanie for helping organize the team for practically a whole year. Thanks to Bob for coordinating the second van & covering those costs. Thanks to Leif for coordinating the first van. Thanks to Lindsay who coordinated the hotel deal for Thursday night in Miami and coordinated our 3 volunteers. Thanks to them for volunteering!!

Did that not seem like the LONGEST 48 hours, ever?? 

Want to read some more RAGNAR race recaps?

• Stephanie @swmslo “Holy Ragnar! Race Re-Cap”
• Lynda @Hit The Road Jane “What I Learned from Ragnar Relay Key West”
• Runs for Cookies “Ragnar Recap”
• Lealah on a Mission “Ragnar Relay Key West’
• See Jen Roe Run – Ragnar Relay Race Review
• Carly Shrinks! – “Ragnar Relay Florida Keys”

The post Ragnar: Miami to Key West Part 4 appeared first on Starpulp.

• Ragnar: Miami to Key West Part 1
• Ragnar: Miami to Key West Part 2

We pulled up to Exchange 18 and saw it was some sort of outdoor 90210-type school. The place was packed, and it took us a minute to find a parking spot. Bob used his skillz and backed into a tricky spot. I decided to check out the grounds & walk around.

I hadn’t packed a towel so I couldn’t take advantage of the showers. A shower at this point would have been amazing.

We’d just eaten so I wasn’t really interested in the spaghetti dinner, though it smelled delicious.

I headed back to the van to lay down for a bit. I tried to sleep in the van a bit but it was impossible. It was way too hot. The only windows that would roll down were the driver/passenger. The others only popped open a few inches. We couldn’t leave the doors open because the interior light would come on, and that would drain the battery. We couldn’t run the ac because that would just waste gas.

There was also supposed to be an air conditioned gym with mats. Hmm. I found the gym, no Ac, no mats. After the race, I checked the Ragnar website & realized the ac was a dream I’d made up. They’d only promised mats.

Regardless, of those conditions, there were people sleeping…well.. everywhere they could without getting driven over. These pictures were actually after it had cleared out a bit. There literally were people on almost every inch of grass when we first arrived.

Is that person in the picture above sucking their thumb?

When I got back to the van, I decided to lay down again but this lady in the van next to ours was talking loudly to someone on the phone about how tough her route was and how it’s the hardest of her teammates. Ahhh! I finally interrupted her and asked if she would walk away from the vans while on the phone. She did, thank god.

I laid down again but there was a street light shining in my face.

It was at this point I remembered I’d packed a cot and comforter so I tried to track it down. That was when I was told it was in the OTHER VAN. I even grabbed a few waters from the cooler to hold onto to see if that would help cool me down. It was so hot, they were warm again in a few minutes.

Sleep was just not happening.

Roxie wasn’t able to sleep either, so we decided to walk around. We ended up chatting in the parking lot for TWO AND A HALF HOURS while I foam rolled the s*** out of my hip. Crazy. I felt like a zombie.

At this point Adam woke up. I walked with him into the school to show him where stuff was and it gave me something to do. When we got back to the van I was suddenly really tired, but he and Roxie would not STFU! Every time I got close to drifting off, they would start taking. Then Adam HAD to have hand sanitizer. I looked aaaaallllll over where I was. No luck (I finally found it the next day pretty much right by where those two punks were talking) I finally gave up, got out & walked around.

I looked around when van 1 showed up at exchange 18 and realized how much the area had changed since we arrived. There were a lot more open parking spaces, a lot of people that had been sleeping on the front lawn of the school were gone and the spaghetti dinners had shut down. In fact, they had cleaned up the cafeteria by then too.

It was starting to dawn on me that our team was running a bit behind. I returned to the van to look over the timing excel sheets Ragnar provided us. We were running 2 hours behind! On the sheet, I was scheduled to cross the finish line at 7:29 pm Saturday night. Given the fact we were running 2 hours behind and had only completed half our teams runs (Van 1 had each run 2 legs, and van2 was starting their second leg), if we continued at the pace we were going, we would finish FOUR HOURS behind schedule. That would put me finishing at 11:29 pm.

OY.

Honestly though, who cares. the heat and humidity were brutal. I wasn’t surprised we were running behind as a result. I know, I’ve had several people ask me “Wasn’t the heat sorta expected?” Uh, not exactly. Yes, heat and humidity was expected, but not THAT heat and humidity. I just cannot explain how totally unusual the heat wave they were having was.

Unfortunately, we had been previously told there would be consequences if we finished too far behind. They might close the course, we might not qualify for medals, THE BEER AT THE FINISH LINE MIGHT ALL BE DRUNK. THE HORROR!!! No seriously. Things were bad. (I hope you know I’m kidding here.) I didn’t really know what to do if anything, so I just kept this to myself.

While we were at exchange 18, there was a really scary moment. Everyone was sleeping in the vans. Adam was the next runner up. We walked up to the exchange point & waited for Lindsay to arrive. We were standing there, in the dark with about 20 other runners around us. A runner came in (not ours) and slapped the “baton” onto their teammates wrist who then took off down the tree covered and very dark side street. When they were about 50 yards ahead, a fancy, grey infinity came squealing around the corner pointed directly as us, the crowd. It spun its tires out, made a bunch of tire squealing noises, and turned right fish tailing down the road TOWARDS THE RUNNER that had just left. Clearly we had a VERY drunk driver on the road. It literally took my breath away. Everyone seemed to pause, hold their breath, watch, and wait. Just when the car seemed just feet away from the runner, the car cut a sharp left hand turn and was gone. I just stood there watching the darkness stunned speechless.

Then my paranoia kicked in. Adam was the next runner. What if?? WHAT IF?? Just a horrible sinking feeling. Add on hunger, lack of sleep and heat and you have me at my absolute worst. I managed to keep everything all bottled up inside though.

At that point Lindsay appeared, and Adam took off.

We caught up with our friends in Van 1 for a quick second before we took off to meet up with Adam.

From there, our van packed up and left. We stopped along the road 5 miles down to wait for Adam & give him a water break. I was co-pilot in the van at this point. Once we stopped sleep tugged me under. Suddenly I woke in a start hearing a heavy breather! Creepy! It was only Adam. He said it was really hot & he was hurting. He was glistening with sweat. I can only imagine how he felt running in the dark heat after only a few hours sleep in the crappy van. After his quick break, he continued on to finish the rest of his long run.

We drove to the exchange of his leg & waited. While waiting I started talking to another team that explained that their teams were so behind due to the heat they were having to leap frog. Hub? What’s that?

By the time Adam came running in, the sun had started rising and we were no had to wear the headlamps.

He passed the baton to Roxie, and she took off on her 6.2 mile leg of the race. Since she was set, we had time to talk to the other team. It turned out there was a Ragnar staff member there who explained to us our options.

a) We could continue on, and finish at midnight.

b) We could leap frog. Instead of teammates running their legs of the race sequentially, they could run them together. This means, instead of running the scheduled leg, Runner B would actually run alongside runner A. This saves time because two legs are being done at the same time.

c) Runners could elect to skip a leg. Teams would have that missed time added onto their finish time at the end.

I called Stephanie in the other van to catch her up on the conversation and discuss what we wanted to do. We decided to have both vans meet up at the next exchange point so everyone could discuss it together. This was a really good idea because it was just a lot easier to discuss in person.

We passed Roxie on the way to the exchange point. She was looking good.

Yay! Water! We were finally able to see and enjoy driving through the keys because it was light out!

Both vans met up at the next exchange point and waited for Roxie to come in. I explained everything again and discussed it. It was extremely tough because I was so freakin tired.

I was relieved when several of our teammates had no issue with doing option B – leap frogging. Several of the runners teamed up to run legs together. This actually worked to the advantage of some runners, specifically Andrea. Andrea really wanted to do the 9 mile leg that runs the 7 mile bridge, but it didn’t work out. That ultimately was assigned to Leif. Andrea was scheduled to run a 9 mile leg right after Leif. This way, they could run it together and neither one was shorted any miles. Kinda nice how that worked out, honestly.

My leg was still really killing me, so I actually decided to skip my second leg which was my long leg. I really wanted to run my last leg because as the last runner on the team, that leg had me crossing the finish line. Who could pass that up, right?? I am still extremely frustrated and bummed that I chose to skip the second leg. I feel like I gave up. I still continue to beat myself up about it. In fact, I almost wanted to skip over this part, but honestly, I just couldn’t. Maybe reading this would help a future team.

With everything coordinated, I calculated we would finish around 6pm this way. Muuuch better.

Plus, almost our entire team was leaving first thing the next day. By getting in at a decent time, they would still have a little bit of time to check out Key West a bit before having to head back.

After we had that sorted out (huge thanks to Stephanie who communicated all our notes to the Ragnar staff), Roxie finally came running in and Amanda took off on her leg 8.1 mile leg of the race. I remember riding in the van to her exchange point seeing the first bridge thinking “oy, she’s not going to like that..” and then seeing a second bridge on her route and thinking “yup. she’ll hate that more!”

Well, Amanda rocked her leg, passed the baton off to Melissa for her 4.1 mile leg. I’m sad I don’t have a picture of this exchange either.

I thought it was interesting an entire tree/bush/weed thing was growing on an abandoned bridge.

Next up was Bob. He was prepared to tackle his 2.9 mile leg.

The exchange went smoothly…

… and off he went.

The next exchange where we would pick Bob up was pretty interesting. We pulled in here and waited for him to cruise on in. This is the leg of the race that I chose to skip (boo), so we would be picking Bob up and not dropping off another runner.

Check back tomorrow to read more of the Ragnar Relays recap!

The post Ragnar: Miami to Key West Part 3 appeared first on Starpulp.

• Ragnar: Miami to Key West Part 1

So finally, it was our van’s turn to start running!

Lindsay, runner #6 in Van 1 came up and slapped the baton on Adam’s wrist and he was off! We all hopped in the van excited to FINALLY be moving. Adam’s run was 4.24 miles, so we headed straight to the exchange point to wait.

While we were at the exchange point, we got a glimpse of the van that eventually won the award for Best Decorated. You can’t tell in the photos above, but it even had little magnets attached to the side that lit up.

Less than an hour later, Adam ran up and Roxie sped off for her 8.54 mile run.

Did I mention it was blazing hot? Regardless, she was all smiles sprinting on in.

Maybe it’s because her exchange was at a Macy’s?

She slapped the bracelet onto Amanda’s wrist who took off on a 3.52 mile run through Miami.

We passed her in the van, and I was able to get this cool shot of her running by!

Before Amanda got in, Melissa got her night time gear ready. Ragnar has what they designate as ‘nighttime hours’ and during that time period everyone must be wearing a reflective vest whenever they are outside of their van and all runners must also be wearing a head lamp and red flashing light on their back. The nighttime hours are activated from around 4:30 pm – 7 am. Although her run was starting around 4 pm which was before the nighttime hours, she would be running into that time period, so she geared up in preparation. If your team is caught not wearing the gear, it’s automatic disqualification.

Amanda ran up and slapped the baton onto Melissa who took off. Sadly, I don’t have a picture at the next exchange of Melissa passing the baton over to Bob.

Finally, it’s my turn. It was odd spending all day watching everyone run while I sat in the van. This exchange was possibly the most fun I’d seen the entire day. By now, it was completely dark, so everyone had their safety vests on and headlamps. Everyone was full of excitement.

Typically when a runner that was finishing their leg runs towards the exchange, there’s one Ragnar volunteer stationed about 100 yards out with a walkie-talkie who radios in the runner number to another Ragnar volunteer who is closer to the exchange. This person then calls out the number to the group of people waiting around the exchange alerting the next runner to get ready and step into the exchange area for baton swap.

I’m not sure if it was the excitement in the air, the fact that it was the first nighttime exchange, or if everyone had been drinking red bull and I missed the memo, but whenever the Ragnar volunteer near the exchange called out the runner number, everyone in the area started also calling out the number. You would hear someone say “2..4..6!” and then hear a whole chorus of people randomly yelling “246! 246! 246!” until someone would shout “THAT’S ME!”. This really got my adrenalin going for my first leg of the race!!

I only had to wait a few minutes until I heard the chorus calling my number and saw Bob running in my direction! A quick slap of the baton, and I was headed off into total darkness!

I literally was running in total darkness in the middle of a field somewhere in south Miami. It was a surreal feeling. It was incredibly hot and humid even at night. The air hung around thick, I almost felt I had to push it out of the way to run through. I could feel it clinging to my arms in a slick blanket. I had barely run a mile.

I took a picture of my watch and the “baton” so you could see what it looks like. The “baton” is literally a slap bracelet right from the 80s. It works fairly well and it’s really kinda fun to take it off and “SLAP” it on the arm of your teammate. A negative? When it’s really hot and the runner before (I’m pointing at you Bob) is uuber sweaty (who wasn’t at this point??), the bracelet sorta slithers around your wrist forming an odd suction sensation.

Running this initial stretch in the darkness really brought me into reality. There were no other Ragnar runners around me at this point, so it was really dark. I was running on a sidewalk along an empty street in what seemed like a field. At one point I saw a small group of people walking in the total darkness on the sidewalk. I approached the first group cautiously. Not being able to really see them, I actually cut across the grass and ran in the street for a few steps to avoid them. Hey! I had no idea who these people were. A girl’s gotta at least give herself a headstart, right? When my headlamp was finally close enough to illuminate them, I realized it was a couple pushing a stroller. Strange, right? I smiled and said a quick hello. I mean, who’s really going to attack someone while pushing a stroller? I crossed back across the grass and onto the sidewalk. About 50 yards later, I came upon another couple. What in the world?

Then I ran up to an intersection where there was actually a street lamp. This is the point where I explain that I’m near sighted, and wear glasses at night especially while driving. There wasn’t a Ragnar sign telling me which direction to run in. I could see something blinking across the street, but I wasn’t sure if that was a Ragnar sign, or a Bobs Barricade. I looked around and saw two kids about 7 or 8 years old sitting about 10 feet away. I asked them if they’d seen other runners like me. They replied “Yes.” I asked which way the runners ran from here and they replied that the runners ran across the street and to the left. Aha! I was right, that was a Ragnar sign. I continued in the direction recommended by the kids.

Then I ran up to a woman pushing a stroller with about 4 kids around her. They parted to let me run through their group. The woman asked me “What in the world is everyone doing?” I briefly stopped and explained we were running a relay from Miami to Key West. She replied “Girl, You crazy.” She’s about half right.

I came up to another intersection and finally people pushing strollers on a sidewalk in the dark made sense. We must be near a military base of somewhat. In the picture above you can see the military jet of some sort.

It was at this point my hip really started to hurt. It had been bothering me ever since I ran the Jacksonville Bank Half Marathon in mid December. I honestly wasn’t sure what was up with it, so I had backed off the running the entire month of December. (Yea… great way to train for a Ragnar, let me tell ya.) My hip hurt on the outside just right below the hip joint, not lower near the knee. I stopped to try and stretch it out some and then kept running.

I was really wishing I had brought some water with me, but I absolutely hate carrying anything in my hands while I run. I can barely wear the watches.

It was at this point I turned a corner and ran into three Ragnar guys who gave me a free bottle of water. Seriously, this couldn’t have been more perfect timing. I was grateful and delirious so I know they knew how appreciative I was. They were waiting at the half way point to cheer on their teammate and give him water.

I ran on and drank my water. It was driving me crazy to be running with it in my hands, but I didn’t want to litter. (Even though there was tons of trash alongside the road I was on…)

My hip was getting the best of me again, so I stopped to stretch for a bit. Of course this is when I saw Lynda from Hit the Road Jane running up to me. (Why does this have to happen when I’m stopped and not when I’m looking fresh and amazing??)

I ran with her a bit to chat and hopefully suck some motivation out of her. I also gave her some of my water. Aside from hydrating her, my secret plan was for her to just keep the water bottle. No such luck. She took a few swigs and handed it back to me. I tried to protest, but darn, I was stuck with it again.

She handed the water back and pressed on (essentially gaining a kill in the process!) tweeted her encouragement while I ran. A “kill” is an imaginary “pride point” you gain when passing another Ragnar runner on the course. Let’s just say I was killed over and over throughout the 36 hours.

Finally! This is THE best sign ever!

Could see the raceway coming up for a while. It was HUGE! I had no idea it would be this big of a raceway. In case you’re wondering, it’s the Homestead Miami Speedway. Adam texted me that he could see me which I thought was weird. Maybe he was on the stands? He wasn’t. He was pulling my leg. OK…

Back at the exchange point, Runner #1, Monica, was ready and waiting to take off!

Finally I ran on in. I was really glad to be done. This was another major exchange point of the race so they had some fun stuff setup here including s’mores. Unfortunately, when I got there, they’d run out of chocolate.

Finally I was done with my first leg. I grabbed an ice pack from the med tent. It was one of those packs that’s warm, then you break it up and it gets cold. I don’t know if it was just a crappy ice pack or if it was the heat, but that thing never got cold. It got cool-ish. I eventually tossed it. I hobbled to the van and grabbed my clothes. There were decent indoor bathrooms here that we were able to change in which was so nice. Many people had to sit in their nasty clothes until we got somewhere with a decent bathroom for them to change in. (This was not something that was able to be done in one of THOSE nasty porta-potties).

Once I changed and walked back to the van, I pulled out my foam roller I’d just purchased on Amazon, and tried it out on my hip in the grass. Holy s*** that hurt really bad. I’m supposed to do this when it hurts this bad?

Roxie asked me what I wanted to eat, and suddenly I was starving. I replied, “A Loop burger with broccoli and fries.” Even though the Loop is no where NEAR where we were at this point. She laughed and said that was exactly what she wanted. She said the group was going to Panera but there was a Chilis nearby. Jackpot!

The van dropped Adam, Roxie and me off at Chilis and went to Panera. When we went inside, the wait for a table was 45 minutes! Oh yea, it’s Friday night to the rest of the world. I had been stuck in our little Ragnar bubble, and forgotten. I’m sure everyone standing around waiting for a table was wondering what we were doing, why we smelled so bad, and why I was wearing a reflective vest. We ended up getting our burgers togo and eating them on a curb in the parking lot. Let me tell you, I face planted that burger. I had only eaten two small lunchables (don’t judge) and some trail mix throughout the day. This burger was goooood.

After we finished, we were sitting around waiting for our van to show up when a few guys from the team The Homolympians walked up. That’s their team name, I didn’t make that nickname up! lol We chatted for a bit. They are absolutely hilarious, super friendly and an ultra team. Holy balls!

This means they only had 6 runners instead of 12 so everyone on their team was running double what we were running. Eventually our van showed up and we were off again!

We headed to exchange 18. This was another major exchange, so we should be able to relax & catch some zzz’s here. The info sheet in our race packet said this exchange would have a spaghetti dinner available for $5 (or around that ultra cheap price), showers for $3, and an air-conditioned gym with matts to sleep on.

Check back tomorrow to read more of the Ragnar Relays recap!

The post Ragnar: Miami to Key West Part 2 appeared first on Starpulp.

—

The first week of January was a whirl of excitement getting ready for Ragnar Miami to Key West!

First things first, I got my nails did. Yup. Ragnar Orange. Priorities people!

Next Adam and I got everything packed. We REALLY didn’t have that much stuff for two people especially considering we were staying in Key West for 3 nights after the race. I also had a box of our team t-shirts, a cot (for Roxie once we got to Key West), and two coolers for the van.

Thursday night, the night before the race, all our Jacksonville based runners met at our place to pack up the van and head out. Unfortunately traffic was HORRIBLE and several people were late. What usually takes me 30 minutes to drive took 50. We finally got on the road around 7 p.m. which meant we would make it to our hotel in Miami around Midnight. We got in around 12:07 a.m.

We woke up bright and early the next morning and took advantage of the free breakfast our hotel offered. Then it was time to organize and decorate the vans. On a whim, I’d swung by JoAnn Fabrics the week before we left and bought a pack of chalk markers. This turned out to be a great decision. Everyone took a pen and got busy.

Now THAT’S an impressive sketch of Chuck Norris! (Roxie’s talents)

For the race, we split everyone into two vans. Van 1 has runners 1 – 6 in it, and Van 2 has runners 6 – 12. The runners all run in succession. While Van 1 is busy shadowing it’s runners through the first 6 legs of the race, Van 2 goes forward and waits at the major exchange which is 6 exchanges ahead. When Van 1 finally makes it to where Van 2 is waiting, Van 2 will begin shuttling it’s runners through legs 6 – 12 and Van 2 will go forward to the next major exchange, which is #12. And so on until collectively, they have completed all 36 legs of the race.

Here’s our team rosters:

Once we were finished decorating the vans, we parted ways. Van 1 headed to the starting line and Van 2 headed to Exchange #6… or so we thought we were.

Right before we left, I got a call from Stephanie. We still had the extra headlamp and red blinking lights in Van 2, and Van 1 needed them to get approved at the safety check at the starting line. (Van 2’s safety check was at Exchange #6). So, change of plans…we headed to the starting line to see Monica start the first leg of the race. I honestly was really excited we got to do this. I just felt like I was missing some of the excitement by not watching the race start.

We hung out for a while, watched Van 1 go through the safety presentation and used the port-o-lets about 8 times. Whooowee! Someone had literally dropped 10 lbs in there.

This sign was displayed all near the safety check-ins. How cool!!! I’d seen some of their tweets on Twitter. I absolutely love fitness documentaries. I cannot wait until I can watch this. For more information, you can check out their website here.

Got our first glimpse of some of the crazy outfits people were actually planning on running in! HELLO CHAFFING???

Finally, it was Monica’s turn to line up at the starting line.Yup, that’s her throwin her arms up in the air like she just don’t care.

I managed to get a really cool panorama of the starting line. (click the image to see it full size)

Finally we headed to exchange #6 so our van could do our safety check in, while van 1 took care of legs 1-6.

At the check in, we received our race numbers and our team swag bag. It had something like 12 sticks of clif shot bloks and a few gu packets too.

…and lots of temporary tattoos!

We walked through their merchandise tent where they were selling t-shirts, jackets, and pint glasses. I ended up buying two shirts. Yup bought two shirts before I even ran a single leg! That means I ended up with four shirts from this race: Ragnar shirt, Chuck Norris team shirt, and the two I bought in the merch tent.

There was also Clif Gu sampling and Nuun sampling. I’m really interested in Nuun and planning to pick some up the next time I’m at the running store. I ran into Lynda from Hit the Road Jane who was on the Nuun team!

I also thought there was supposed to be free massages at Exchange #6, but I never found them. Oh well. I hadn’t even run a leg yet, it’s not like I NEEDED a massage..but who ever turns down a free massage?

We headed back to the van and tried to relax. I was really tired from getting to Miami so late the night before, I tried to sleep a bit in the van. It was just too hot.

It was at this point we welcomed our Van Mascot, MiniG, to the team! (Mini Gnome)

At some point a free box of Krispy Kreme donuts showed up. I guess they were handing out one box per team at the exchange point. No thanks! I can’t really say I’m interested in donuts after having run the Krispy Kreme Challenge back in July.

While lying in the van, I could hearing other teams walk by and read the Chuck Norris sayings out loud that were written on the side of our van. It made it even funnier to hear someone else say the jokes. At some point someone actually added their own Chuck Norris joke to the bottom of the list.

We also got tagged… a lot. What’s tagging? Well, I’ve never read about it in any of the other race recaps I’ve read, but several teams made custom magnets and stickers for their teams and put them on all the other vans. We probably had approximately 12 on our van by the end of it.

Here’s a picture of the exchange point to give you an idea of how it looked. It was one of the major exchanges, so this one was a bit more exciting.

The music was loud and exciting, so Bob & I had an impromptu dance party while we were waiting at the exchange for our teammate.

Wheeeee!

Here’s another panorama to show the exchange point. Just click on the photo above to see it full size.

Check back tomorrow to read more of the Ragnar Relays recap!

The post Ragnar: Miami to Key West Part 1 appeared first on Starpulp.

The next day, we got up, headed out to the race and did some warm up runs. Then Adam and I walked to the start line. He went his way (towards the front) and I walked towards the middle.

It was right at this point I realized I was wearing the wrong shoes.

%#$@

How does this happen?? Then my friend, Judy, appeared out of know where.

I’m pretty sure the first words out of my mouth were “Hey. I’m wearing the wrong shoes.” I’m super friendly, can’t you tell?

She reassured me I would be fine. I mean, what else could she do at this point? We started chatting a bit before the race started and realized we were actually even paced. She was planning on doing an interval plan run 2 minutes, walk 1 minute. So right before the National Anthem was sung, we decided to run this thing together. (or maybe I decided to run it with her, and she didn’t know what to do at this point)

Oh look! It’s the same modern building from the Native Sun 10k!

Yup. A little obsessed. Well, I honestly don’t have that many pictures from this race because Judy and I were so busy chatting it up the whole race, I didn’t even realize we were running. Here’s some things I remember:

• Jumping for joy when I saw the house I had to miserably stand at for about 10 minutes the previous year while I waited for a ride to drive me to the finish line. Seeing that house, I was so excited and cheered.
• Around mile 10, things got really tough. Judy said, “Oh, I remember this bend. It’s super easy”. Uh, Judy needs to get checked out because that whole Bend? Yeah, continuous incline.
• I want to buy her interval thing. I believe it’s the Gymboss SILVER HARDCOAT. You could set the run and the walk times (Ours was 2 min run, 1 min walk) and it would vibrate when it was time to change. This was great because it didn’t:
  • annoy everyone around you and
  • you could still get buzzed even if you had headphones in.

Before I knew it, we were at the last 2 miles of the race. My legs were protesting, they really wanted to stop. Judy kept us moving on. Finally we were at the last .2 miles.. then .1 then SPRINT!

I didn’t PR at this race (finished in 2:50:56), but I am happy to say I completed the half without getting injured. That’s success all on it’s own. PLUS I beat my two most half times from the 2011 and 2012 Marine Corps. I’ll take it!

I may not have run the race that day, but I was a winner! I won a free sandwich at Bagel Love after the race!!

The post Subaru Distance Classic Half Marathon 2012 appeared first on Starpulp.

another title could be “do as I say, not as I do…”

Let’s dive right in.

My third half marathon is in the books! I last ran the Marine Corps Half Marathon the year before, October 1, 2011, and finished in 2 hours 52 minutes and 23 seconds. The year before was crazy because I found out I’d lost my job (the company was closing) the day before.

So I recently learned that you can change the alarm on the iPhone from just saying “Alarm”. I know, I know… How does a geek like me not know this?? so.. now I use it ALL THE TIME. For example..

My first alarm of the day. My second alarm of the day is below. Surprisingly, I sprung out of bed on the first one, so this was actually unnecessary. Still fun to see it pop up as I was getting ready.

I drove down to the stadium and parked super quick. One trick I have is to take the Hart Bridge to get to most events at the stadium (including Florida/Georgia). I get off at the Adams Street exit (the one to the left by the jail) and then essentially just do a u-turn onto Forsyth and end up right by the Arena. It’s a quick way of beating all the traffic that usually gets stuck on Bay Street or the Mathews bridge.

When we got there, the first stop was to use the port-o-lets. For some stupid reason, all the port-o-lets throughout the stadium parking lot (the one’s they use for the Jaguar games) were all locked. The ONLY ones I could find that were open, had a REALLY long line. The ones at Met Park were also open, but I’m pretty sure they had lines too.

When I FINALLY made it through the line, I literally waited for the race to start about 2 minutes, and then we were off. I had NO time to warm up as a result. This is my fault for not getting down there sooner. Oh well. I already knew I wasn’t running this race for time. I was just hoping to finish before they started shutting down the race (which is about 3 hours and 30 minutes). Why? I hadn’t really trained well at all. Before, when I had trained poorly, I completed my long runs on the weekend but not my mid-week runs. THIS time, I was decent about the midweek runs, but hadn’t had a run over 6 miles. Yikes!

Here’s a recap of my training plan in a nutshell: dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb

Well we got things started and right away I came across this guy. Regardless of whether he was running the half marathon or the 5k, this was crazy impressive. This was a good reminder right from the start that I was lucky to be able to complete the half marathon, regardless of what my finishing time was.

Not much farther down, I started hearing the marines cadence coming up from behind me.

Sure enough, there they went by chanting “Sound-off; 1 – 2; Sound-off; 3 – 4; Cadence count; 1 – 2 – 3 – 4; 1 – 2 — 3 – 4”.

Finally, it was split time. 5k or half?  Here’s my last chance…. at this time around 2 miles, I didn’t really feel that bad.

Main Street Bridge time!

Throughout the race, I made sure to stop every half mile or so and stretch my calves out on a curb. Last year at the Subaru Distance Classic, I ended up dropping out due to Achilles Tendonitis, which I did NOT want to happen.

Now HERE is a smart water stop group. He had piles like leaves of water cups all gathered together thanks to his handy dandy rake.

Acosta Bridge time!

I ran the race as a 4/1 interval. Run 4 minutes, walk 1 minute. Super easy, because all you need to do is remember to walk from 4-5 minutes and 9 – 10 minutes. Apparently I have a hard time doing math while running, so this is one of the few interval runs I can mentally fathom.

While the sky was a bit overcast, it really was a beautiful day out…if not a little…warm.

Seriously, look at that view of the Fuller Warren bridge. The clouds were just stunning…and then my iPod broke.

Finally I made it through to Avondale. The race is an out and back, so I had fun being able to watch the runners returning towards me and try and spot out my friends.

Just past Avondale, I ran past the best water stop of the day! Tootsie pop stop!

Right around mile 7 (across from Espeto Brazilian Steakhouse), I ran into my friend, Caron! She was headed out to breakfast, and just stopped to cheer on the runners for a few minutes. That was a much needed surprise and boost!

Around mile 9 or so, we turned and ran along the river. When I saw this guy, I thought of Adam who loves to fish. He should have gotten his butt outta bed that morning and fished while he waited for me! haha

By this time, the sun had burned off the previous overcast weather, and it was HOT. If I recall correctly, it was right around 80 degrees. Seriously, anything in the 70s is really too hot, especially for a half marathon.

The weather was deceiving, because it looked absolutely beautiful out.

We ran along the river right on the same path as the Krispy Kreme challenge from earlier in the summer.

And then, it was the dreaded bike path. Oy.

It’s always a good feeling when you see the first bridge you ran over towards the end of the race.

Along the riverfront, I was really hurting. My legs hurt.. bad. I was pressing on and by this time, switched to a 1/1 run/walk. Run one minute, walk 1 minute.

Love these statues because they mean I only had about a mile and a half left!

I have no idea how they caught me smiling.

Yeah, this is more realistic.

FINALLY FINISHED in 3 hours 16 minutes and 38 seconds! Absolutely horrible finish time. My worst time ever by over 20 minutes. I had serious moments throughout the race that I doubted this would ever happen. (Huge thank you to Becky & Tom for taking this picture. I was totally delirious at this point.)  I could blame my finish time on the heat, but really? It’s because my training was crap.

If I thought running the race was horrible, the days following were absolute torture. Because of my lacking in training, I was literally sore for about a week. REALLY sore.

Ok. Onto the next race, the Subaru Distance Classic Half Marathon on Thanksgiving….which I’m seriously training for this time! Lol

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