Official Results

Drum Roll Please! The goal was 2 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds. Previous personal best for the half marathon was 3 hours 4 minutes and some change. I wasn't just looking to break that! And I did! 2 hours and 50 minutes on the nose. And that was gun time, there was no chip time for this race. I'm a bit sore the day after and all those people who said,"oh, this is a flat, fast course." All I can say is,"LIARS, LIARS, LIARS." The race starts on an incline, then you get flat and some downhills until you get to mile 7 which was a beeyotch...then rolling hills (whatever that's supposed to mean) from miles 8-10, then down and flat on the way back. After 10 it took me to 11 to get my legs back, then 11 and 12 were not horrible, 12.5 stuck to the run walk plan and then ran out the last .5 mile, passing all the people that had already finished and were heading back to their cars.

Learned a lot about myself. I understand now why I've been unable to meet my goals in the past. It helped immensely to have the Jeffinator (Jeff Moore, my running buddy, swim buddy, all around work out buddy & he makes awesome wine & beer) run with me. He was convinced he couldn't finish in under 3 hours, I knew he could so I knew if I could keep pace with him, I'd finish in under 3 hours. We stuck together the whole time and he ran in the whole last mile, finishing 3 minutes ahead of me.

So lessons learned: Uhm, you can't quit if you feel a little exertion. I'm not talking pain, I'm talking exertion. I realized what I had been doing in the past and that was not pushing myself. I've put the hours in for the training and could accomplish the distances but was never going to meet my time goals cuz I just gave up when it got too hard. Having Jeff there showed me that, because I was having trouble keeping up with him for the second half of the race. I finally stepped outside of the comfort zone and said to myself that it might be a little uncomfortable right now, but you're not going to get to the finish line by your goal if you don't test yourself. So the correlation here is simple, it's the whole reason I'm not losing weight either. It's like saying, I walked on the treadmill for two hours last night and then leaving off the part that it was set on 1 mph. Or saying you did the stationary bike for two hours but you never even got it going fast enough for the power to kick on. I can push myself and need to, so this winter isn't going to be about accomplishing an endurance race, like a half or full marathon. It's going to be about getting stronger mentally and physically. Becoming a more efficient swimmer. Spending more time exerting myself on the bike. Speed drills on the treadmill, to get faster at the shorter distances, then at Christmas, I'll start to build the distance to go with the speed. Finally, strength. I'm weak, the hills totally kicked my butt and it doesn't matter if it's running or riding. I can go all day on the flats, but if you get a .5% grade I start huffing it. I'm 36 and haven't smoked for years, so there's no reason why I shouldn't be more capable.

Tonight, I had a great swim with Jeff too. Something I would never dreamed I'd do. It was 60-65F outside, the water was freaking cold, but I went out hard for the first 300 meters across and got there in 13 minutes. Then on the way back, did some mentally challenging things like swimming with my face in the water. It was the first time I'd even used my goggles for looking down. I have a lot of obstacles to overcome this winter and I hope to challenge them all and accomplish 4 tris and maybe 2 or 3 half marathons, as well as some 5K and 10K races.

CARPE DIEM! Funny it sounds cliche' but always appropriate!