Seabrook Lucky Trails Half Marathon~ March 14, 2009

I ran the race with my husband. It was still dark when we arrived at the race, hard to find the start line when you are walking through puddled paths in the dark and we had parked around the corner from the starting line. The pavilion was lit up so we knew we were headed in the right direction. We had to pick up our chips, this was only my 3rd half marathon, but both the previous ones gave you your chip on your bib, so we found that line and got our chips , then I did a few circles of the pavilion to see if I could find fellow runners that I type at on a running blog. We had arrived kind of close to the start time so I didn’t have much time to look around. I was a bit disappointed, but our names were on our bibs and we were going to run laps so I thought maybe I would see them out on the course.

The race started on time, it was nice to be in a small race and actually be able to hear all the pre-race announcements and the national anthem being sung. Then the race director yells “Beeeeepppp’ into the mike and says “that’s our gun..GO!” The first mile or so we were running on streets and then cut into the park. It was amazingly not crowded, at some of the turns and bends it got a little congested, but for the most part it was not overly packed with people. By mile 3 or so we were all pretty spaced out, that surprised me in a good way. I was a little worried that I would be running in crowds the whole way. The runners were very courteous when passing, the volunteers were fantastic and did a really good job making sure that you stayed on the correct path. The water stations were well manned and even offered tissues! I noticed this because I always run with a tissue in my pocket and thought that was a nice little extra.

Around mile 5, I started to glance at bib names of those passing us by heading in the other direction, thinking I might just see the friends I was looking for. Suddenly I see one of the ladies pass (uh-hmm…I mean FLY past )me by, but by the time it registered, it was too late to yell “hey, its me Nana-Susan”. I thought maybe I would pass her again on other laps but never did. ( I did get to meet her the next morning though. My husband was running another half again the next day(3-15) so I was back at the race course)

Then around mile 9 my darn hamstring starts to ach. I have been nursing a hamstring injury since I ran my last half in February. I keep trying to ignore it thinking, I am going to ignore this pain away, but it didn’t go away, instead it kept radiating down the back of my leg. By mile 10 the pain had spread to my knee and I was in pretty severe pain. To say I was disappointed was to put it mildly :( I kept running, well, it was more of a run hop or a hop drag. I was so determined to finish this race, but I knew by mile 11 that I was in sorry shape and that the PR I had hoped for was not going to happen. That was a hard pill to swallow. It had nothing to do with endurance, I felt great other then the pain in my leg and I had been so on a good pace!! I kept getting slower and slower and at one point just wanted to cry, my knee was hurting so bad . My husband stayed by my side and helped me through the last 3.1 miles, encouraging me, asking me if I wanted to walk, even if I wanted to quit. And he knew I would NEVER say yes to a quit! I would have crawled across that finish line first! My husband just kept telling me to slow down and try to keep my form. I was glad to have him with me! I know I was looking pretty bad too, because people on the side line and even other runners kept encouraging me along the rest of the course. (It was somewhere between mile 9-11 that I thought I saw another of the ladies pass me on the course. But I was wearing my contacts and when the sweat gets in my eyes my vision gets a little blurry, so I only thought the bib had her name on it, but I was pretty sure it was her based on my blurried reading of her name and the fact that she was wearing the black cap she had described to me. I found her after the race and it was her that passed me. It actually pepped me up a little to see her and I needed that badly at this point.

The course was very curvy, because it was trails, and on the straight aways I would try to pick up my pace a little bit, trying to make up some of the time I was losing. The turns were very hard on my knee and leg and I would slow down again. It was rough going those last few miles, and I easily lost 15-18 minutes in overall time. I was so glad to round that last bend and head to the finish line and did my best to pick it up when I rounded to the finishers chute ( very short chute!) I don’t think I had anyone fooled though, the lady that handed me my medal, told me she felt my pain and that there were massages over there as she points to the massage table!

While I did wind up with and injury, which really rotted, the race was great. It was fun to meet fellow bloggers who I type at and it is always fun to run a race with my husband by my side! And I cannot wait to go back next year! Because I can so smoke this time!!!! Which was 2: