Being only two weeks away from Christmas, I decided that I would wear a Santa hat for this race. I've been to plenty of races in the past where people had dressed up, and I figured there would be quite a few people donning festive gear for this one as well. I wore a fuzzy Santa hat, a bright green shirt, and snowflake-covered, knee-high red socks. I must say, at 5:30am before the sun had risen, that fuzzy hat really helped to keep me warmer as I huddled in the darkness with all of the other runners. By 7am when the race started, the sun had just barely topped out over the mountains, and by about 15 minutes into the run, things started to warm up considerably.
Compared to other races I've done, there really isn't a whole lot to talk about here. The race started off easily, I managed to keep a steady pace without walking for almost the entire race, and things generally went very smoothly. Not too long after starting the run, I realized that out of more than a thousand people running the half marathon, it seemed that I was in fact the only person wearing any sort of costume. I got lots of comments by runners passing me, and it kept my spirits up to know that other people were cheered up by my Santa hat. As I ran further along and the sun rose higher, the hat got to be ridiculously warm and gross, but I managed to keep the thing on for the entire race.
My goal time going into this was 2:30. I ran a 2:55 on Mount Lemmon, and I knew that a 2:30 was well within my limits, as long as I was able to avoid walking too much. At the halfway point into the race, I was at 1:04. I was actually very surprised with this number, as I've never run a 10k that fast before. I knew right then that I'd be able to hit 2:30 for sure, and that was a huge boost of energy. I was still feeling pretty good up through mile 8, especially considering I had yet to stop and walk and before this race the longest distance I'd ever run without walking was only 5 miles. I started to get a little tired during mile 8, so I ate the GU that I had brought with me. The calories seemed to help a little bit to pick me up, but around this time my legs were starting to feel the downhill slant and the constant pounding of the pavement. I convinced myself that I had already run this far without stopping, why not try to make it the whole way? I knew there was a decent uphill on the last mile, and figured I would probably have to walk part of that, but the least I could do was try to run all the way up to the point.
My legs were really starting to hurt in the last quarter of the run. My quads were really tight and my calves were letting me know that they were unhappy every time my feet hit the ground. But I kept running. I got passed by a lot of people here, and I know my pace had slowed a bit from where I had started, but I didn't want to walk. In reality, I may have finished faster if I had taken a few walk breaks to rest my legs and attempt to stretch out a bit... but oh well.
I finally made the turn off of Oracle and started the final uphill portion. I ran as far as I could up the first hill, but had to switch to walking about halfway up the hill. Once at the crest, I forced myself to run to the bottom of the next hill, which I then walked up. And I think there was one more hill after that. I don't remember for sure, it's kind of a fog in my mind. All I know is that the hardest part of this race for me was convincing my legs to start running again after walking up those damn hills. My legs were killing me. It was only another mile to the finish, and I managed to run all of it into the chute, but... ouch. But hey, I finished! And I beat my goal time! My official finish time was 2:23:13, and I'm pretty thrilled with that.
I could tell as soon as I came to a stop that I was going to be seriously hurting, and even just walking around the finish area to get food and my bag was hard. Even after two short massages, I could barely sit and stand without wincing. I guess there could be multiple factors contributing to my soreness after this race, but I'm blaming it mostly on the downhill course. Not as fun )or fast) as I'd expected it to be.
When I crossed the finish line, a reporter from one of the local papers came up and asked me a few questions. Apparently my hat grabbed his attention. The next morning this wonderful piece of journalistic excellence was published. I guess I'm famous now. Oh, and Josh finished his full marathon in 5:09, which was almost two full hours faster than his Mount Lemmon time.
This was my last race of 2010. I'm not registered for anything else right now, and think I'm going to take some time to not worry about upcoming events and just to enjoy doing other active things- climbing, hiking, yoga, biking for fun, and hopefully some skiing. I've started working out with Josh at a CrossFit gym, which is something totally different than what I'm used to. I'll explain that more later.
... oh, and for the record: I still hate running.
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