Race Recap #2: Race Day

After having a few days to reflect on the race, I think this post might actually be shorter than I originally imagined it might be (hah)! Well, as short as I can keep it, that is. But after a few days of recovery, I think it has all settled in and "normal" life has resumed.

After the expo Saturday, we went to a naval base in VB and climbed a lighthouse, strolled the beach and then went out to Plaza Azteca for dinner. We didn't really know where to go/what to do for our carb-loading dinner, so we figured we'd had luck eating at Plaza before weekly long runs before, so we knew it wouldn't hurt. We chowed down on guac and fajitas and then returned to our hotel room and were in bed by 8 PM. 8 PM! But we were both pretty tired from getting up early, roaming the expo, and hanging out in the heat most of the day. So true to our old-person ways, 8 PM bedtime didn't seem so bad. It also made it easy to get up at 4 AM on Sunday to prep for the race! We wanted to be up early enough to drink a full cup of coffee, a few cups of water, and to be completely awake before heading to the shuttles. We left the hotel around 5 and caught the shuttles from the ampitheater to the race start with no problems. Our bus driver was a little nuts, racing down the roads and yelling/honking at people in our way (at 5:30 AM....think about that...there weren't many people to honk at but she did it anyways), but we got there in one piece.

While we waited to line up in our corral, we chugged water and constantly had to keep going to the porter potty's from all the water! However, we were lucky enough that a lot of people didn't show up until closer to 6:30, so we didn't have bad lines to wait in. Once the corrals opened up, we went and hung out in ours, listening to all the pre-race hype and MC-ing. Oddly enough, we weren't really that nervous at any point that morning, like we anticipated we would be. We were just ready to get running! The race started at 7 and after the first 11 corrals took off, it was finally our turn to start! And off we went! No more than a few blocks away from the convention center,  did the humidity set in and we knew it was going to be a challenging run. The bands were great and really rocking during the first few miles (I paid less attention as we ran), so that helped keep us motivated.

As we kept running, we were keeping a better-than-anticipated pace around 10:00/mile, yet we weren't overdoing. Somewhere around mile 6, we saw the elite runners/winners crossing their mile 11 and it was really fun to cheer them on with all the other runners around us! We had been in the shade for awhile and the humidity wasn't super stifling--all was going pretty smoothly and it was shaping up to be a good first half-marathon!

But then, as we kept going, we were in a more humid and sun-exposed area and things started to turn downhill for me. I began feeling really dehydrated, even though we only skipped one water station at mile 3 because it was so overcrowded, and we had been eating energy chews about every 1.5 miles. So I started taking 2 cups of water at every station--I don't like Gatorade, so I don't take it at races, which I actually think might have been working against me on Sunday. After drinking a lot of water (and being hosed down by spectators), I was still feeling parched, but I had to pee really badly. Like, really badly. Not like, "oh I think I gotta go" but like "OMG IT'S GOING TO RUN DOWN MY LEGS ANY MOMENT NOW" kind of bad. Sorry to be so graphic, but I just need to emphasize that it was almost painful to run because I had to go! Somewhere between miles 9 and 10, there was a water station with porter pottys and I bolted over to them. Will got annoyed because we'd been making good time and might be able to finish somewhere between 2:10 and 2:15 if we kept pace, and he knew if we stopped, it'd be hard to get going again. I knew this too and even though I was starting to feel fatigued, I probably could've pushed through if it wasn't for my damn bladder. As I waited, I was pee-dancing like crazy (ladies, you know what I mean) and Will was grabbing some more water/Gatorade and trying to keep moving. When a potty finally opened up, it was extremely relieving. After, I grabbed some water and tried to get going again. But I immediately felt dehydrated and weak! Argh!

I knew something wasn't right and I let the yogi in me overcome the runner in me and listened very closely to what my body was saying. I convinced Will that something really was not right and I wasn't just being lazy/giving up/etc, and we stopped to walk for a bit. We had both really hoped to make it through the first race without walking, so I knew I was letting him down. But I was really not feeling well and had started to get dizzy while running. So we walked for a bit, occasionally interspersing in running (although that was starting to cause cramping for me, so I could only do it in short spurts), and at every water station, I just chugged and chugged. I was glad we had decided to walk because right around mile 11, we started to see more and more runners on the side of the road being attended to by medical personnel--I knew I would have been one of them if I hadn't stopped. As we approached the 13 mile mark, I walked through the last water station and Will kept going. His knees bother him a lot to alternate running/walking, so he just had to keep going to the end if he was going to run across the finish. So I mustered up what energy I had left and ran the last leg of the race by myself, and managed to run across the finish. Amazingly enough, I still finished in 2:29:something, which was right at our predicted race finish time. If only I could've kept running--what a great finish we would've had!

Once I crossed that finish line, though, I hit a physical wall. Without even thinking, when the staff handed me a water bottle, I chugged half of it. And then I suddenly felt extremely ill and it occurred to me for the first time all morning that I wasn't DEhydrated, but that I was OVERhydrated. When I found Will, he immediately knew I was not well from looking at me, and he sat me down and fetched a banana to try to get some protein in me. I felt like I was going to be sick, and all my body kept saying was that it wanted water, but I knew it wouldn't help! It was such a weird dilemma to be dealing with and I know it's my own fault because I can't stand Gatorade or chocolate milk, the other two options at the finish line. But for the first time in my life, water (basically the only drink I drink) was not my friend. After letting me sit for awhile, Will saw that I wasn't improving much and decided we should get on the shuttle and get back to the hotel ASAP so I could cool down, lie down, and un-hydrate myself. Well then our bus was freezing, so I was shivering from being soaking wet and cold, which didn't help either. But eventually, after changing out of wet clothes, crawling under the covers, and taking a shower, I finally started to feel better. It was such a shame because I had definitely been hoping for a more glorious race finish, where I'd be overcome with joy from completing a half-marathon, but instead, I felt like I was going to hurl. It also meant no post-race pictures with our new bling and our proud accomplishment :(

Reflecting on the end, I think I should just be happy I made it relatively in one piece--there were apparently many people who went to the hospital and were treated for heat-related illnesses on Sunday, so I'm mostly thankful that my first half-marathon didn't end that way! In some ways, I feel like I cheated myself out of my first half-marathon experience by giving up and walking, but then I remind myself that my body wasn't asking me to stop--it was telling me. And when you're body tells you to stop running, sometimes you have to go against your mind and listen to your body, no matter how much you don't want to. All I can say is, it's definitely not my last half-marathon, so I will get that glorious race finish and post-run photos next time! And whether I ran the whole thing, or ran most of it and walked the rest, I still finished 13.1 miles and earned the sticker that I'm going to put on my car!

Lessons learned:
1. Um, overhydration is a thing that I need to be aware of, apparently.
2. Pick a cooler race--next up will be in November!
3. We need to work on more long run distances. But now we have a couple months more to train, so yay!
4. We apparently can keep a slightly faster pace than I realized-also yay!
5. As much as I love the taste of Honey Stinger Organic Chews, we probably need to switch back to Jellybeans, since they have caffiene and other things in them.
6. Grapes are awesome around mile 11-thanks to whoever was serving them! New favorite run snack.