So, my recycling bin is really out of control. I don’t have recycling in my building (thanks, Houston), so I have to drag it over to MSB’s place. This requires carrying a bunch of trash down the stairs and to my car, and I’m often already carrying stuff when I go to his place. So I say, “I’ll do it later,” and now that there’s a bunch of cans, bottles, and plastic food containers spilling out of my trash can and onto the floor, the task has become a lot more daunting. I’m pretty sure I won’t do it until someone comes to visit me and I need my kitchen to look decent.
Updating my blog is like taking out my recycling. I have a lot of things to write about: lots of cookie baking, some great mileage weeks, and oh…my brother got married! And writing about all this has just gotten much too cumbersome for me. But hey, I won a half marathon today, so I have to update! A race is my expected houseguest.
I ran the La Porte By the Bay Half Marathon this morning. It was about 70*, raining, and the course went over a giant suspension bridge. Twice. It was the biggest hill I have ever experienced.
Luckily, the rest of the race was flat, very well-organized, and had great swag.
My friend and I arrived at about 7 AM, and hour before the 8 AM start. La Porte is about 40 minutes from where we live in Houston and the drive was perfectly easy. So was parking–we parked in a lot in the starting area, about 20 feet from the port-a-potties (no line!) and 15 feet from packet pickup (almost no line!). Every time I do one of these easy, small races, I vow to do more of them. Just not this one.
We started near the front of the pack, and I quickly became the leading female. The first 5 miles were sooo flat and easy and I kept needing to hold myself back. At the same time, however, I allowed myself to bank a little time because I knew I would slow down a lot on the bridge. I did between 6:36-6:40 for all those miles.
Then we had to run on the highway service road to get to the bridge. That’s when things got ugly. Literally, this was a really ugly, boring part of the course.
The bridge was nicer because we could look out over the water, but I couldn’t really do that because I was staring straight forward and willing myself up the hill. The men around me started to pass me with their annoying quad strength, but I felt like I kept a good pace. Until I got to the top and my Garmin split was 7:24.
I made up some time on the way down the hill–6:14, my fastest mile of the race. We hit another ugly part and headed towards the turnaround, where we went around cones in a parking lot.
After the turnaround we ran back the way we came. The other runners were so great! They kept yelling for me because I was the first female. I tried to smile at them, but yelling back to everyone was out of the question at this point. I was just hanging on as we ascended the bridge for the second time.
The second climb involved a lot of wind and drizzly rain in my face. As much as it sucked, I will say that getting up the bridge gave me something shorter to focus on, instead of considering the 4.5 miles ahead of me. I got to the top and passed a group of guys, then began speeding down the other side.
Mistake! Who knew that flying down a half mile hill would give me such a wicked side cramp? I mean, I haven’t had one of those in years! It happened after I got to the bottom, around mile 10. And it just…stayed there, hurting and pinching and taking away my breath. I had to slow down to the 7:20s again, the same pace that got me up the bridge.
Miles 10-12 were really bad. If I sped up, the cramp got worse, so I just held on. The guys that I passed on the bridge flew by me, and getting passed always knocks my confidence a little.
The cramp finally worked itself out, and it was like I had been sitting in a traffic jam that finally started moving again–just a huge relief. The last mile was decent. Not great, but a good sprint at the end.
My time: 1:31:05. A far cry from my 1:28 goal and the sub-1:30 pace I was running until the cramp, but good enough for the overall female win. I was hoping for a great time to give me some confidence for Houston (6 weeks!), but the course was hard and I won, so it’s tough to be too upset.
Plus, I got a plaque!
Bottom line: Well-organized race, good post-race food (which I felt a bit too ill to eat much of), and a really nice crowd of runners. Running over a huge bridge in the muggy warm rain really brings people together.
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