Oh yes, we tried another Rock & Roll despite the very, very bad experience of Vegas.  Could bad luck strike twice?  Doubtful, right? Plus, we had made a commitment to Matt’s cousin to come down and run this one with her.

Our training could have been better, oh yes, it could have been.  Matt and I pretty much took the rest of December off.  Maybe we got in a short run or two in?  I honestly don’t remember.  But between the suddenly turned sour weather (as in rain) and getting ready for the holidays that we were in no way ready for,  things were tough.  We got back from Vegas on December 7th, and usually by that time, we are at least 35-50% done with our shopping, and this time?  Zero percent.   We were also expecting house guests a few days before Christmas, which brought my holiday up a few days, truncating the number of days I had to get ready – which I am not complaining about because that, my friends and readers, made it the best Christmas ever – but it did make things really stressful!

Anyway, runs were put on the back burner.  Maybe two got done.  We both did keep up with our strength workouts, so our legs didn’t just turn to gel.

Which brings us to January, and the New Year and about six weeks from the race.  Uh-oh.  I called it cramming.  You could call it boot camp.  But whatever you call it, we were in trouble and had to start training IMMEDIATELY!  Matt and his cousin would have their own stories to tell.  Theirs are not mine to tell.

However,  this is mine.  I started following John Bingham’s walk/run plan in the back of his book Marathoning for Mortals.  The plan was for a longer period of time than I had, so I quickly made adjustments and skipped the “fall back” weeks (my body let me know when I needed those).  I like his plans because they don’t focus on speed, they just get you to the distance.  And that is all I needed.

Unfortunately, although December was mild, but wet,  January became gnarly and cold and wet and snowy.  So I had to do a lot (most) of my training inside on the treadmill.  Fortunately, intervals are the most favorable workout to do on a treadmill.   I managed to get in my three runs a week and I feel that I trained very hard.

With every week, I got stronger and was able to go longer and faster, but I was in no means ready for the distance, but I knew at the very least, I was prepared and able to walk it.  I really could have used a few more weeks.  Two weeks before the race, I was able to get outside and do my last long training run, which was a walk/run interval session (untimed) for 6.2 miles (10k) and walk the last 4 miles.  It took 2:30.  Then I didn’t have time to do much else, just a few 5Ks before the race.

Race day!

Well, not quite race day.  We were flying down on Friday, and when we were packing on Thursday night, the forecast was for a low of 57 and and a high of 70.  I will go on record as saying that while I was okay with the 57, I was bummed about the 70.  Yes, I live in a cold climate and wanted it to be HOT in Florida.  So we packed for a 57 degree race.  For me, that was long pants, a long sleeve tee and a light jacket that I could remove.  I took capris in case I felt that I wanted to wear those.  Matt took short sleeved shirt and pants and shorts.  That is all.  No winter gear.

While we were on the plane, the forecast changed. The new one?  38 at the start and a high of 50 for the day, I think.  Yep.  See:  no winter gear.

Now for race day.

We got up at 5:00 a.m. and start to get dressed.  First thing we note is that I forgot my sports bra.  Um.  Yeah.  That’s not good.  Okay, so now what?  Wear my regular one.  (Should I run in it?)  Weird.  I double checked my stuff when I packed.  How did this escape me?  I gave my jacket to Matt to wear (don’t worry, it is a men’s jacket!) and I wore my hoodie over my running shirt and we left.

We get to the start line and immediately regret letting our ride leave.  The three of us are looking for a warm place to huddle to get away from the cold wind and being jealous of all the people sitting in their cars.  We end up behind the porta-potties.  Nobody ever said running was glamorous.  So, yea, I did get to actually use a porta-potty before the race, so this is already starting off better than Vegas – despite the bra thing!

 

However, we were late to the start line (our fault) but it didn’t matter as there wasn’t a breakdown in corrals and we actually started with our corral (Matt moved back to mine and Denise’s).  Yay!

Then we are off.  We said good bye to Denise and Matt and I ran together for about five minutes and then I sent him on his way.   The course was nice and flat and so I felt pretty strong.  There were not a lot of participants so it was definitely easy to manuvuer around and I didn’t even feel I had to stay to the side.  I was faster than a lot of the people around me.  It took me about 7 minutes to realize that I had left my sunglasses at my sister-in-law’s and that was going to be my biggest annoyance about the whole race (besides the wind).

I eventually settled in with a couple that I don’t even think knew I was pacing them.  They could run for a longer interval than me, but I was faster.  So I would stay in front of them, and then when they would pass me running, I would start running too, pass them up and run as long as I could, then walk.  I would be well ahead of them and stay there until they caught me again.  They were my timer.  I had no idea of their interval times or their pace. But they seemed to going pretty similar to where I had trained.  There was another girl nearby who was being followed by someone on a bike on a sidewalk and she called out her pace to him and she was going at my goal as well, so I tried to keep her in sight as well (cause yes, I left my Garmin at home too).

My first mile was under 11 minutes.  Whoo-hoo.  I felt good and strong and just kept up my intervals and at the 10K, I thought I would be able to keep running.  When I saw the 10K timer said 90 minutes, I had to ask a fellow runner if it did indeed say that (we needed to take off the 15 minutes for our actual time).  I was pretty ecstatic, but not as much as I was going to be in a few minutes, when the 2:45 pacer passes us.  I was on course to finish this race at 2:45 (although I knew that I couldn’t possibly keep up that pace).

Around 6.5 miles, I had to stop to walk. And walk.  Darn it! What happened? I was feeling so good and strong.  When I stopped to walk, I really thought I was done, and would walk the rest of the way.  I was content with that.  Then, at mile 8, I realized that it had taken me nearly a half hour and hey “I WAS on track to do a 2:45 and I bet I can still do under 3:00″ so guess what? I started running again.  And run I did.  Run, walk, run, walk.  To keep myself on some kind of rhythm, I counted to 200 on all of my runs. Slowly.  That way, I knew that I was running for at least a decent interval.

And before I knew it, I passed the 9 mile marker, and the 10, and the 11, and the 12, and the 13. Running intervals the entire way.   I ran the entire last .10 and finished in 2:57:38.

 

 

The thing I didn’t like about the course was all of the out and backs.  I know that the planners wanted to keep us on the water, but out and backs are a bit demoralizing, seeing all of those people ahead of you and when you can’t see where you are going and where the turnaround is.  The only one I didn’t mind was the pier.  That was cool, and pretty,  and there was a mile marker on it.  It is very sad that the pier is going to be demolished soon.

I try not to dwell on the “I could have done it in 2:45″ and instead celebrate the “under 3:00″ because this is a comeback run for me after not running for so long.  (Vegas doesn’t count, for many reasons and hey, I walked that, remember).

Matt did awesomely well too – 2:25 and Denise finished in 3:45 which is awesome for her first walking race ever!  Sometimes, less training is more.

And I am glad to see that Competitor Group pulled this race off.  Yes, it was a much smaller crowd, but it was Inaugural and I didn’t see any of the problems that could have happened (some people complained about hose water, but anyone who is ever going to race should just get over that right now).

Oh, yeah, we might have signed up for Rock ‘n Roll Latin Music Miami Half Marathon in November.  Maybe that will be my 2:45.

My splits:

5K –  39:24 (41:44 was my Turkey Trot in November – yay improvement)

10K – 1:17:10  :)

10 mile –  2:11:07   (my training run was 2:33)

Average pace:  13:33

My overall placement was 6201 out of 7006 and believe me, I have done MUCH worse.

Here is my sweetie in one of my favorite race photos of him: