Time for another race report! And yes, that means you’re in for another long, drawn-out story. Feel free to skip to the end if you’re tired of my wordiness. 😉
Yesterday I ran the Rock CF Half Marathon, which, by the way, was my eighth half. Eighth?! Wow! If that isn’t surprising enough, what came as a real shock to me was that I realized yesterday morning when I woke up that this race was the first “racing” event I’d ever done: five years ago, I walked my first 5k at the Rock CF. I can’t believe I forgot all about that! I just went and looked to see if I had a race report for that one, and it turns out I did! I just read it over, and it made me chuckle (I was so excited to finish that 5k in under 41 minutes!!), and yet at the same time, it truly amazes me. I can’t believe how far I’ve come since that day!
Anyway, back to this year’s race. I have been very nervous about and actually kind of dreading this race for weeks. 😮 I’ve been doing Katie’s (Runs for Cookies) “Finish Strong Half Marathon Plan,” using a finish time of 2:07:30 to calculate all the necessary paces. The only reason I chose that time is because it was close to my current PR (2:08:32) and was also easy to calculate from the sample finish times she gives (halfway between 2:00 and 2:15). Still, after my previous attempt to PR a half in August, I wasn’t feeling very confident.
On Friday afternoon, my dear friend Renee, who I think is truly my #1 fan, posted an article to my Facebook wall . Renee is a very experienced runner (been doing it since high school and has run many marathons, including New York a few years back), and she is always encouraging me in my endeavors; it was she and her husband (another experienced runner and track coach) who first encouraged me to run five years ago. She sent me a link to this article, saying it reminded her of me. It’s titled “9 Habits of Highly Successful Athletes,” and at first I kind of rolled my eyes, because I certainly don’t consider myself an “athlete.” I’m just a formerly heavy girl who now runs. But as I read the article, I realized how many of those nine habits I follow–all of them, actually! It was very inspiring and uplifting, especially for the fact that Renee, my friend who truly is an athlete in my view, thought of me while reading it. Although I was still nervous, it did give me a boost of confidence.
I actually didn’t register for the race until Saturday afternoon, which turned out to be a good thing: they’d had a problem with the race shirts and the women’s’ sizes came in ridiculously small! I waffle between a small (if they run big) and a medium, but when they held up the medium shirt for me to look at, I couldn’t help but blurt out, “Is that a youth medium?!” Seriously, they were that small. I ended up getting a large, but a lot of folks who had pre-ordered were forced to take the really small shirt, with a promise of exchange after the race if they had any leftover. For once, I was glad I had procrastinated!
Meanwhile, I had mentioned in previous posts that there was an unknown factor regarding Sunday: whether or not JJ’s team would be in a championship game at 11:15am, just a little over 3 hours after the half started. The good news is, that turned out not to be an issue; the bad news is it was because JJ’s team lost in the semi-final on Saturday afternoon. 🙁 To make matters worse, there was some unexpected hockey drama surrounding the team on Friday night (after the team won the quarter-final game) that really put a damper on the weekend. I’ve learned that it’s best for me to leave the hockey drama off my blog, but suffice it to say that JJ was pretty down about it, and then when the team lost on top of that, my poor little guy was quite upset. I sent him to the car after the game to put his bag away, thinking he’d come back in to watch another friend’s semi-final game with me, but instead I found him out in the car, sitting in the front seat crying. 🙁 Broke my heart!!
Still, Saturday was Jamie’s birthday, and that meant we had to put on our big girl/boy pants and go home to celebrate. I will save that for another post, but suffice it to say that I may not have had the best pre-race meal Saturday night. 😛 But, I did get to bed at a decent hour, at least!
Sunday morning, I was up at 5am without issue. Race day nerves! I wanted to park in the high school lot for the race (as opposed to taking the shuttle), so I left a little after 6am to arrive at 6:30. It worked–I had plenty of spots to choose from when I arrived, but it did fill up quickly after that. Race start wasn’t until 8am, so I had plenty of time to kill. I even took my contacts out and took a little nap in the backseat. 😉
When I first decided to run this race, all three of my running buddies were signing up as well. Unfortunately, Toddra was unable to devote time to training due to her work schedule, so she had to switch to the 5k. That left Ann, Jen and myself to run the half. Sadly, we got a text from Ann on Saturday that an old knee injury was flaring up and she would be unable to race with us on Sunday. Such a bummer! She had issues about halfway through our training and had to take a week off, but other than that, she had been right there with us every Saturday for our long runs, so I knew it was tough for her to back out. 🙁
So that left just me and Jen to run 13.1 miles. I was glad to have Jen, but I was worried she wouldn’t be too glad to have me…she was very adamant that she wanted a friend to run with (she’d run her last half solo and said it was not a good experience), but I am not much company when I run. Talking + hard running are not my forte. 🙁 But she said she was happy to have me there regardless, and we met up at about 6:45 and hung out for a while in my car before the race started. She asked me what pace I was going for, and I told her that a 2:08 finish was a 9:46, and I’d be really happy with that, as it would be a PR. She actually finished her last half in that time, but had mentioned being unhappy about it, so I was worried she’d feel that was too slow, but she assured me she was just fine with that.
After about 45 minutes in the car, we lined up together and she even agreed to a pre-race selfie.
The starting line was pretty packed, and we were both surprised and delighted to see that they had pacers!
See those neon signs in the shape of lightning bolts? Those are the pacers! They hadn’t been advertised on the site at all, but they had them for about every 5 minutes. We lined up between the 2:05 and 2:10 pacer and as we listened to the race director, Emily, make announcements, I heard her say that anyone who gets a PR at the race is welcomed to “ring the gong.” Yes, they actually had a gong for ringing. I thought that was pretty cool. And of course, being the competitive person I am, I immediately thought, “Man, I’d like to do that…” 😉
We started right on time, and I felt good for the first few miles (ha, of course I did!). I decided to try to go a little below our pace goal of 9:46 to account for walking through water stations. I brought water with me, but I figured I should play it safe. We started out on East River Road, with a lovely view of Canada.
It would have been lovely had the sun been out, but I was just happy it wasn’t raining, since rain had been in the forecast. One thing that surprised me was how bad the road was–there were a lot of potholes, and it made it hard to maneuver, especially in the early part of the race when we were packed pretty tightly together. Now, for those who don’t know, Grosse Ile is rather well-known for being a pretty pricey area to live. You might think that would mean they’d have plenty of tax money for good roads, but, just as I was thinking that to myself, someone near me actually mentioned it to her running partner, (who obviously lived on the island): “Hey, can’t you Islanders afford to fix your roads?” 😛 He pointed out something obviously neither she nor I had thought about: the island is actually a township, and the roads are maintained by the county. I guess they’re not high on the priority list!
We eventually turned off the river road and went down a road called Parke Lane, which was in much better shape than the more-travelled main road. As Jen and I ran down this road on the north end of the island, we were quite impressed with some of the homes. They were amazing! I especially liked the one with the tennis court, as well as another one that had an “inlaw” house that looked almost as big as my house. 😉 I didn’t take any pictures out of respect, but boy I would have liked to!
We eventually went over the canal.
A little while later, we had a hard left turn and we were going down the other side of the island on Meridian. We didn’t go quite to the very northern tip of the island, but I’m pretty sure we went to the northernmost inhabited part! The initial view on the west side of the island (across the channel) was uninspiring: it was an old steel mill in Trenton. 😛 By this time, we in mile 4, and I was still feeling good, even though we were averaging about a 9:31. I was feeling well enough that I was thinking that if I could maintain a sub-9:46 for the first half, I would be doing great for the second half, when I would obviously be more tired.
Right before the mile 4 marker, they passed out “Carb Boom” energy gels. Normally, I would never take anything I hadn’t tried before during a training run (“Nothing new on race day” as the saying goes), but I had forgotten to buy any fuel for the race, and I knew it was in my best interest to have something. I took two, one banana peach and one strawberry kiwi. Jen took one, too, and we both agreed they were “a last resort.” 😉 Soon we made a right turn–onto a dirt road! Jen and I were both surprised, but it didn’t last too long, thankfully.
Somewhere between mile 5 and 6 (I think), we passed a driveway that had an unscheduled water station. It didn’t take long to realize that the homeowners had decided to create their own water station, working from cases of bottled water out of the back of a van, pouring it in Dixie cups, which they held out to the passing runners. How awesome was that?! I didn’t take any water, but I did make sure to thank them for their kindness. We actually saw a lot of spectators out in their yards as we ran the entire course. The people of Grosse Ile are definitely encouraging of the runners, which is pretty kind, considering how much the race must disrupt their lives every year for the better part of a weekend. 🙂
We continued along on the east side, past the toll bridge and down onto West River Road. The closer I got to mile 6, the less energetic I felt. I pulled out the banana peach gel right before mile 6, but after taking the top off, I dropped it, and I didn’t want to slow Jen down (or myself) by turning around, so I just let it go. I figure that one was probably the one that would have made me sick. 😉 I tried again after mile 6, and I was able to take a small amount of the strawberry kiwi one. Sure enough, it gave me the boost I needed, thankfully, without any side effects.
Once we passed the halfway point at 6.5, I knew my average pace was below the 9:46 mark, and I decided that I would do everything in my power not to stop, not even for water. I had brought water with me, and I felt like if I could just keep going, I would be able to at least have a good, solid sub 2:10 finish. We couldn’t see the 2:05 pacer at that point, but we knew the 2:10 pacer was a ways behind us, so I felt like we were in good shape.
True to form, I did not talk much during the race. Jen made a few comments now and again (like when we both agreed we wouldn’t want to buy a house on the island that had a view of a steel mill, ha ha!). She talked a bit about her daughters and other things I can’t remember, but in general, we were pretty quiet. I tried to respond whenever she talked, but I was working pretty hard by that second half, and my comments were often just grunts. 😮
Just before mile 8 was the exchange point for the relay, where the Grosse Ile high school kids also had a water station. I chuckled as I ran past their Star Wars themed water station, but I didn’t learn until later that I missed the best part.
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I hope that link works, because it’s a great example of high school kids at their best-having fun while doing something good for others. 🙂
Eventually, we came to a more scenic part of the West River Road.
All those wrapped-up boats! They’ll be back in the water soon enough. I captured a shot of the road as we ran down, too.
The sun was trying to come out, but I don’t think it ever did.
I was slowing down by this point, but I knew I was still running a good sub-9:50. I took another shot of gel at the 8 mile mark and got a little bit of a surge of energy. Just past mile nine, we turned hard left again and bam–straight into the wind! 😮 They called out to us that there was a water station ahead, and Jen said she’d like to stop and get a sip. I asked her if she could catch up to me if I didn’t stop, and she seemed hesitant, so I said I would go ahead and stop. As we got closer to the water station, I decided to just slow down so that she could run ahead of me at our current pace. She took her water, and I ended up catching up with her just as she was ready to go. I offered to continue walking but she assured me she was good, and off we went again.
Then we had a turn that took us to a surprising spot that I wasn’t expecting…
An airplane hanger! I guess I missed that in the race info. 🙂 We actually got to run onto the Grosse Ile airport property and through the airplane hanger.
It was totally cool! It’s hard to see in that pic, but they actually had a few small planes inside on display. I was really tired at that point (we were almost to mile 10), but I was glad I still took the time to pull out my phone and grab a few pics to remember it. It was definitely the highlight of the race!
That mile turned out to be my slowest of the race at 10:11, but with the slowdown at the water station, that was to be expected. After we came out of the hanger, we turned east and out there on the airport property, there was nothing to block that wind. I groaned when we hit it, and Jen joked, “I thought you were used to the wind out there in the cornfields where you run?” I grumbled in reply, “I still don’t like it.” 😉
As we came back onto the road, Jen commented that our pace had slowed and wanted to know if I was okay with that. I told her I was, partly because I still wasn’t fully committed to a PR, and partyy because I was just tired. Once you get to mile 10 of a half, it’s hard! My legs were tired, and various points on them were hurting (one knee, the other knee, my ankle, and definitely my feet). But I just kept telling myself that I had trained for 12 weeks and I was not–NOT–going to give up with just a 5k to go.
When we hit mile 11.1, I knew we had 2 miles to go. I was just below 1:47:30, and I started doing the math. I was currently running slightly over ten-minute miles based on my last two miles, and I knew that if I could just keep it at a 10-minute pace for the last two miles, I would be really, really close to a PR. (A real benefit to running close to 10-minute miles is that it makes in-race math easy!
For that mile, I pushed it a little bit more and my 12th mile came in at 10:01. At that point, I was so close, all I could think was how angry I would be at myself if I came close but didn’t make it. That spurred me on, and I was really pushing it for the last mile–I was running close to a 9:30 as we came down East River. With less than a half mile to go, we could see the big flags up ahead that said “Finish”! Jen said, “Is that really the finish? I didn’t see the mile 13 flag?!”
I was giving it everything I had at that point, but I managed to squeak out, “I don’t think so…” Then we saw that the “Finish” flag was actually at the turn off of East River into the middle school driveway, which then led to the finish. Jen was not happy. “If it says finish, it should be the finish!!” I totally agreed with her, lol!
Right after the turn, we passed the 13-mile flag, and my watch was telling me I was at 2:06 and some change. I just knew I was in line for a PR, assuming I had started my watch at the right time, so I gave it everything I had and sprinted to the finish. Crossing that finish line felt so good, but even better was looking at my watch and seeing a time of 2:07:01! I couldn’t even believe it!
I walked (hobbled) over to Jen (who also sprinted at the end and finished a few seconds ahead of me) and gave her a big hug, and we both congratulated each other. She asked me if I managed a PR and I said I was pretty sure but that I wanted to check the official results to confirm it. (Yes, I know that it was pretty much a sure thing at that point, being that it was 90 seconds faster, but I wanted to be absolutely positive, lol!) We went in and got our bagels, bananas and cookies, and then Jen had to hurry up to get her race shirt to exchange it and then leave for a family event. She made sure to tell me to ring the gong before I left once I confirmed my PR. We did get a quick post-race pic with our medals.
Jen has the best smile! I always look so frumpy in my race pictures, but honestly–I dress for comfort, not fashion. 😛 (Someone pointed out to me on Facebook that with the two heads behind me, I look like I’m wearing Mickey Mouse ears, lol.)
Eventually, I found the race results area and was able to confirm my time:
Whoo hoo!!! I honestly cannot even believe that I beat my previous PR by a full minute and a half–especially since I had gone into the race not even fully committed to PR’ing at all! I can’t lie–that silly gong was definitely a motivator. Who doesn’t want to ring a gong when they have a major accomplishment, right? 😉 But beyond that, just knowing that I had done all the training, and therefore my body should be able to accomplish the pace I had trained for, also helped give me confidence.
Before Jen left, we talked about the race and our experience a little, and we both agreed that we felt really good afterwards, compared to our last half marathons. I mean yes, I was tired and sore, but unlike my last PR race, I didn’t feel like I wanted to keel over and pass out. I actually didn’t sit down for at least 40 minutes after the race, but just walked around and enjoyed the post-race party. After my last PR at the Detroit Women’s half, I fell over on the ground and didn’t want to get up ever again! Yesterday’s post-race experience was definitely a much better one! I definitely feel that is a testament to Katie’s “finish strong” plan. Not only did I get a PR and feel good afterwards, but I truly did “finish strong”–my last mile was a 9:23, which was my best mile of the entire race! Now that is something I am definitely proud of. 🙂 And yes, I totally rang the gong!
After the race, I came home and took a nap, and then…I cleaned my house. 😛 No kidding, I really did. But it was filthy and really needed it, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to rest on my post-race day off unless my house was clean. After that, the kids and I went out to dinner. No, not to Bagger Dave’s! We all decided we wanted something different this time, so we went to an Italian restaurant in Woodhaven and had some delicious food.
Like most Italian places, the portions were huge. I only ate one third of what was there, but that made for a nice lunch today (and probably tomorrow, too!). Dessert was an amazing tiramisu.
However, I was not quite quick enough–I only got two bites before my boys devoured it! Next time I’ll know better…they can split one, and I’ll get another one all to myself. (I adore tiramisu!)
So that’s the end of my race day celebration. As far as the race itself goes, I have to say it was a great experience all the way around. I was lucky that I avoided the shirt issue, but other than that, the water stations were well placed, the spectators were great, and the course was very interesting. I absolutely loved running through the airplane hanger! And the cookies at the end-truly ah-mazing! I need to find out who made them, because they were just delicious!
I had a chance to talk to the race director, Emily, afterwards, and she was just so nice and I could tell she was very proud of the race (I believe she herself has CF and therefore is very passionate about supporting the cause) and was also very dedicated to making it the best it could be, for everyone. As I walked away, I heard her telling someone that they need to work on gear check next year… 🙂
So all in all, a great experience for me. I can’t deny that I’m really proud of my new PR, but at the same time, I’m just really, really happy it’s over. 😉
(True confession: I hate neon colors, but that shirt is SO comfortable!)
Thanks for reading!
Sounds like a great race and a wonderful PR! Way to go!
Congrats on your PR!! What a great race. It’s on my list of possibly halfs for next year!