Race Report and Other Ramblings

For the weekend update, I'll start off with my 5k report, since I'm sure there are a few who are wondering. I guess I have good news and bad news. The race was a lot of fun, and I saw several people from my neighborhood. I woke up at 5:30, because I wanted to make sure I got to the right place, and had plenty of time to warm up and take a bathroom break beforehand. For some reason I had butterflies in my stomach, even though it wasn't a big deal. I think I just got psyched out by all the people, and being there by myself (since Hubs was at home dead asleep), and it seemed like everyone else was a hardcore runner. But anyway, I just kept telling myself that the adrenaline would be good for me and give me an extra boost. I tried to take a picture of the big hill before the race started, but in the picture it doesn't really look like that big of a hill. But when you're running up it, it's definitely a big hill. In fact, the hill kicked my butt. It started about .3 miles in, and it was depressing how many people passed me. People pushing strollers passed me- in fact, this guy even passed me. This picture was taken after the race, but I did try to whip my camera out of my little pack to snap it while I was running. He was just too fast (plus there were a lot of people in the way- this ended up being an unobstructed shot).

Anyway, at the first mile, my time was 9:55- yikes! I knew I had a lot of time to make up to finish under 30:00. I kept pushing, through the whole thing. I saw a lady from my neighborhood that I see running in the mornings when I leave for work. I thought to myself if I could keep up with her, that would be good. She was a tiny bit ahead of me, and she was running with her son (who is probably only about 7), but something in me wanted to catch up to her. Finally, at mile 2 I passed her (barely), but she stayed right behind me the rest of the race. Toward the end, I was keeping track on my good old Nike+, and at a little over 3 miles, I was at 29:50. Crap! I didn't think I was going to make it under 30, but I pushed it hard until the end- barely breathing as I crossed the finish line. The time on the official clock was 30:24. So close, and frankly not too bad considering I did absolutely no training on hills. However, I am a little bit suspicious that maybe the route was longer than 3.1 miles, since Nike+ tracked it at 3.28 miles. Now, I did forget to end my workout right away, but I hadn't taken more than a few steps past the finish line when I remembered. So, I think I'm going to measure it (either with my car, or some kind of map feature) to see if it was longer.

The good news is, even though I didn't make my under-30 goal, I did run every step of the race- even on the hills (after the big hill, there were a couple of little hills). Plus, I was cruising on the down-hill parts. There were several times that my pace was under 9:00/mi. So, overall it was a great race, plus it was fun. I will definitely do it again next year. Oh, and I forgot to mention, that there was absolutely no water on the route!! What? I wish I would have known before I started, because I had a small water bottle with me that I could have filled up, so that I didn't feel like my throat was full of sand at the end. But whatever. They did have tons of cold water and popsicles at the end. And, if I looked at the results correctly, I finished 30th in my age division- rock on! So here are a few pictures of the pre- and post-race, including my lovely pancake breakfast. Warning, there was a slightly psychotic photographer on the loose taking pictures of herself and other people (uh, that would be me).

This is me before the race. Notice how un-sweaty and un-redfaced I am.
BTW, the make-up is leftover from the night before that I didn't wash off. I did not put make-up on to run a 5k.

This is me post-race, eating a popsicle before I even opened my water. Some nice gentleman offered to take the picture for me, because he probably thought I was a lunatic trying to take a picture of myself, while eating a popsicle.

This is a great picture of me after the race, so happy to be sitting down and to finally have water. Notice the slightly red, and more-than-slightly-sweaty face. Even though the race started at 7:00 a.m., it was probably about 80 degrees already- and pretty humid, too.
And this is me with my lovely pancake breakfast (and the portion sizes are even rational- aren't you proud of me?). When I first sat down, the lady next to me made some comment about being honored that a runner would sit next to them - yes, she called me a runner!- but when I took out my camera and started taking pictures of my food, she was probably a little creeped out- LOL. I don't know what's worse- that or the fact that I seem to have no upper lip.
This of course is not me- it's my mini-me. It's my little sister who was in the parade. Awww, I'm just so proud. And any guys out there who might be reading- back off! She's only 17- and my dad has shotguns. = )

Okay, that was fun, wasn't it. I guess I'll back-track a little bit and talk about the soccer game Thursday night. Since it would be a long drive for me to go home after work, and then drive back down for the soccer game, I decided to stay at work. However, since there were fireworks afterward, the game didn't start until 8:00 p.m. I ended up working until 6:45- and I started at 7:00 a.m. It was a long day. But I had plenty of work to do, so no biggie. Plus, our tickets were in one of the box suites, with dinner catered. The Hubs has a friend whose wife works for a TV station that owns a box at the stadium, and several times she has been able to get free tickets. It's nice to know people who know people, ya know? So we had a nice BBQ dinner from Famous Dave's (yes, I did eat 2 cornbread muffins- no, I did not eat a chocolate eclair ice cream bar or drink any soda). The game ended up 0-0, but was actually pretty exciting. There were several shots on goal for both teams, with a bunch of close saves. Then toward the end of the game there was a big brawl (seemed more like a hockey game), and a guy on our team got a red card and therefore kicked out of the game, and the guy on their team only got a yellow card, which got the crowd riled up. There was all kinds of crap thrown onto the field. It was kind of funny. Here are a couple of pics- one is a view from our seats, and the other is a picture of me and the Hubs.

They are building a new soccer stadium, but right now the games are held at the U of U football stadium. It's kind of weird to see the football lines, and the soccer lines, but it's a happy reminder that football season is just around the corner- sweet!

Okay, now that I've made a weekend update into a 400-page autobiography, I'll conclude with Saturday's happenings. I did not do my long run. I know, I feel as bad about it as you do. I was looking forward to my motivational message from Lance on my longest workout. But I woke up sometime before 6:00 a.m. with a bad stomach-ache and some other issues that I won't go into. I thought maybe it was from all the unhealthy food I'd eaten in the past few days, and needed to just sleep it off. So I went back to bed thinking I could always do my run that night. Well, pretty much all day, I had a low-grade fever, and was slightly chilled, and I had no appetite. I felt like hud. I sipped some gingerale, but still didn't eat anything until about 4 pm. I had the Hubs make me some top ramen/cup-o-noodles. I don't even remember the last time I ate one of those things. You know I had to be sick, because those things are so full of fat and sodium, I would never let them pass my lips otherwise (seriously, 33o cals and 14g fat for one little cup!). Some Tylenol helped my fever, but I still felt yucky all day. Then this morning, I felt fine. So, who knows? Probably a combination of stress, lack of sleep, and very poor eating (did I mention the steak, half hot-dog, coleslaw, 3 lemon bars and lofthouse cookie that I ate Friday afternoon? It's no wonder my stomach wasn't happy-ick, it makes me sick to even write about it).

And that brings me to my weigh-in. I'm not sure what to put. With all the crazy holiday eating and being sick, I don't really have an accurate measurement. I was 136.4 Sat morning, but then after a day of being sick and not eating much, I was 134.2 this morning. So, technically I guess I'm down .8 lbs, but it'll probably all come back by tomorrow now that I actually have an appetite. I guess we'll just have to wait and see next week. For now, I'll take 134.2 (wouldn't you?) Or I could average the two, and go with 135.3- nah, we'll stick with 134.2. :~)

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Later Update:

Ha! I was right! The race route was longer than 3.1 miles- it was 3.21. I used the Google Maps function on the Nike+ web site, and it was already mapped out. So that means, if it took me 30:24 to finish 3.21 miles, my time for 3.1 miles would have been just 29:22!!!! Wahoo!!! That means I finished a 5k in under 30 minutes! Take that you dirty rat-badgers! I tell ya, the race director is going to get a piece of my mind- no water and longer than 5k. Who do they think they are? Okay, I feel much better now. Not quite so much like a loser. Next year, we'll see if I can run it under 27:00 (that is, if I'm not pregnant).