Too much to say (RnR)

and really not that much time to say it. I know i owe a post about Deep Creek, about the family reunion, about adjustment back to "life". It all came and went so quickly I barely had time to put my thoughts down! I'll update those this week, I promise.

Saturday was the Rock N Roll marathon, my friend Lisa and I did the half marathon. I do love the half marathon distance the most but I can't say I'm thrilled with the experience this time. There is SOOOOO much leading to me not loving it this year and I'll spare you the boring details and summarize it best I can in a positive light. Nut shell version is: I really didn't train for this race like I should have if I expected myself to do as well as I know I could have. I can't be disapointed. I can't expect that running 5 times in the 14 days previous was going to help me maintain what ever I had gotten ready for up till then. I can't say that getting 4 track work outs in the last 8 weeks did much for my speed, and shorting no less than 1 run a week for the 7 previous weeks was really doing me much good. I didn't want to run this race very much at all in the last few months so it's no wonder I didn't have a sense of accompolishment on Saturday. i just wanted to get home and get the laundry started.

Last year I ran the full. The weekend was amazing: Allison came in, we had a great few days leading up and then an amazing day following. I didn't get the time I wanted last year either but the entire event of it was nothing short of amazing so that overshadowed the disapointment in my time. I ran the race with a group of women I had become very close to in the months leading up to the marathon and was just as thrilled for them and their PR's as I was for my own finishing. But this year Lisa and I had big hopes and we both fell short, much of our own doing, weeks ago. We ran it out of necessity not out of desire. Could that be proven by the fact that the day before I forgot to eat lunch and had to remind myself to drink a glass of water before bed instead of properly nourishing and hydrating the week leading up to the race?

I picked Lisa up at 5:15, both felt pretty good. It was 60's and overcast. We hitched a ride to the start and got as close as we could which resulted in about a 1.5 mile walk to the start. We got to the start with enough time to squat behind a bush to pee, the lines for the Honey Bucket were way too long. We put ourselves in corral 4 which was the first starting wave so we didn't have an extra 10 -40 minutes like the other runners. I have to say, this was the best thing about the day. Last year they started each corral with 2 minute break between. I texted Evan that I thought we'd start around 7:30 so look for me 15 mintues either side of 2 hours after that. Big mistake: This year they started corrals 1-4 at the same time and then had a 5 minute break before corral 5. This meant we got off the start right away and it was glorious. We hung toward the back of the pack and it wasn't like we were running with 30,000 other racers: it was like we were running with 2,000 other racers. Our pace was fast the first 4 miles, at just over 8min/miles. We knew too fast, kept saying we needed to slow down but it didn't happen. Somewhere aroundmile 6 we found our true pace and slowed. I stopped for water twice and walked through the water stations. We took shot blocks at 5 and 10 and water at 6 and 11. Evan tried to catch us at 11 but it didn't work out well, what with me being about 30 minutes off on my time. Just after we got throug the finish line and headed toward the bathroom we saw him and Walter enter the family meeting area. They missed the finish too, too bad. Walter loved it though, he loved dancing to the music, seeing the people, eating th banana's. I have no idea my officialy finish time right now: I conveniently forgot my watch and Lisa and I split a bit before the finish. I gave Jeremy my race bib to get in to the after party too, so I can't even use my race number yet until tomorrow. The official clock was at 1:53 and i think we were 3:15 or 2:45 off the official start so I'm saying my time was 1:50 give or take a minute and a half. Meh. Kinda makes me glad I wasn't registered in my name to have that time linked to me. The girl whose name I was registered in is screamly please, though!

I had been having a hip flexor (or maybe IT Band) issue for weeks and I think the grade of the road on the interstate off ramp (heavly turned to the inside) might have aggrivated it a bit more. This week I'll do yoga a few times to see if I can stretch it out before I see a PT. I'm glad to have nothing on the horizion to train for. Now, if only we could get a decent summer day, we'd all be please. For 2 days last week it was in the 70's. It won't get higher than 67 this week. It's almost July. I guess we won't be going to the lake for the weekend!!