I had the chance to meet a couple of Team Z'ers - which is awesome. I love meeting others on the team who I haven't met before.
When the race started, I felt great. I pulled off a 9:39 mile, a 9:41 mile, and then... a 21:29, the last .1 mile was an 8:17 pace. At first glance, you'd think "what in the world?!" Well, there's a reason.
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| Sporting the Team Z GREEN! |
Ok, so the first two miles were great. I actually FELT great too. I LOVE running in the cold. (I don't love the after effect... which I'll get to later.) I drank a little water at the 2nd water stop just because I knew I needed it. I had just looked at my watch and was thrilled that I was on pace for a sub-30 minute 5k. And then... it happened.
A woman (in her 30s/40s) tripped over a cone. She wasn't paying attention to where she was going and tripped straight over it. She went down hard apparently. I got there just after it happened. There were 2 runners with her and I wasn't going to stop, but I did and asked if anyone had let the cop know about it. They said they hadn't. So, I backtracked the .1 miles to the cop and let him know. We went back to her and I stayed, along with 2 other runners, with her until the paramedics got there... 12 minutes later. Seriously... 12 minutes. I was shocked that it took them that long to get there. So, 13:00 of the 21:29 was to help an injured runner.
While we were there with her, she said she was really light headed, had a ringing in her ears, wanted to lie down, and then went to the side yard of someone's house and puked. Fantastic. Guess who has a concussion?! Needless to say, we wouldn't let her lie down. Not on my watch, no way! We handed her over to the paramedics, gave them the quick version of what was going on and left to finish our races.
I knew I only had about .5 miles left to run, so I torn off like a bat out of hell. When I had last looked at my watch, it gave me a mile time of over 26 minutes for the mile. (I have the Garmin 110 and it does average pace for the mile.) I managed to get it back down to 21:29, so you can imagine the running that was going on... lol.
When I got to the top of the hill (oh, I didn't mention that it was mostly uphill for that last .5 miles, did I?!), I saw my husband and a friend and they were like "WHAT IN THE WORLD?!"
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| Me giving the quick version of why I was 13 min behind schedule... |
I know all of those walkers who I was blowing past were probably like "uh...". :)
After the race, we hung out a bit. I waited for the other Z'ers to come in and let them know about Mike (he was the other runner I was chillin with) since he's a friend of theirs. We were waiting for a friend of ours to come in and finish his first 10k. I was SO PROUD of him. He came in at a clock time of 1:13:xx. VERY respectable for his first 10k race. He said he ran it faster on his Thanksgiving day preview, but it was colder today.
Speaking of the cold... while we were outside, I was perfectly fine. When we got home and I started warming up, I started hacking up a lung. Ugh. This is the only part of cold weather runs I'm not a fan of... warming back up. I sit here 2.5 hrs later (or so) and my legs and hands are still a little chilly. The coughing stopped about 20 minutes after it started, so that's good.
Other news
Now, Disney is 12 days away. AH! My current "best" half marathon time is from the Shamrock Half Marathon in 2009. I ran the 8k the day before (and actually had a decent-ish time). I did so well up to mile 8 of this race and then totally bonked. I was still pretty new to running (2 years in) and wasn't so good with my nutrition plan. My plan for Disney? To beat this time below. I've got that, right?!
| Place | Athlete Name | City | State | Age | Gender | Finish Time |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5094 | HEATHER ANDERSON | ASHBURN | VA | 28 | Female | 2:42:08 |
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