crlgrl’s BodyBlog

I had the alarm set for 0430 but started waking up at 0300…don’t you just hate that, when you wake up every 15 minutes to check an early alarm! The plan was to be out the door by 0500 with three teenageers in tow. Not an easy task I would think on a Saturday morning, but they all set alarms and did it without Mommy! I have to say, I have a couple of great sons. They both took off work so they could go watch me run, without me asking them to. Then my oldest son worked until 0200 Friday night, which meant he slept for about 3 hours before he got up. I must have done something right along the way and being there for friends and family is a great quality for them to have picked up! The race is 2 hour drive and we went to check out the course on Thursday, while we were in the city. And  we drove the exact same road I was using yesterday, paying close attention to signs and landmarks so that when I drove myself….I wouldn’t get lost. Yeah, I got lost! Really, I blame FP and FNB, I saw the airport I’ll be leaving in 19 days to go to the Arnold and finally meet my buddies in real live person, so I was picturing the screaming and jumping up and down and screaming and hugging and jumping up and down and when I woke from my daydream, I was like, "I don’t remember a pawn and pancake hut." So, I drove on a little ways, to make sure I was lost and make sure I was lost GOOD, apparently. The race started at 0800 and I was right on schedule to be there at 0730 so now I was pissed and freaking out!! Ever notice when you miss and exit, that even though you’ve seen one every 50 yards for the last 50 miles, it was always the last one. So I drive and cuss and drive and cuss, I hit my cussing quota for the week in about 10 minutes so no more cussing this week..dammit. When I did finally find an exit to turn around on, it had a pay toll both ways! Threw my 2 quarters in the first one, no problem, threw my 2 quarters in the 2nd one a little too hard I guess and banked one! Aggghhh, get out another quarter and gently toss it in. We make it back to the interstate but now I’m going in the oppisite direction so I don’t know if I’ll recognize the exit. All 3 teens are awake now, for some reason, and the clock is ticking…it’s 0745. My oldest son asks me why I didn’t print off some directions but shrunk back in the seat and started rocking back and forth when I gave him the Mom, "I’m about to go ballistic all up in this MO FO look." We figure out where we need to be going, I use the "emergency vehicles only" median crossing saying, "Don’t ever do that!" and pull into the park with 4 minutes to start time. I stopped at the port-a-potty ’cause I’ve had coffee, superpump and water and power pee! The boys dump me out in the road and say, "Don’t worry about anything except getting there. We’ll get everything else." Which, silly me thought would include the camera." My warm up before for the race consisted of running to the start line and then running back to the chip table because they reminded us to have one on. My first race was not chip timed so I had no idea of how to use one and no time to learn. I just asked some guy, "Will you put this one me?" I never miss an opportunity to have a random guy kneeling at my feet!   Back to the start line and literally 30 seconds later the gun goes off! The only part I was worried about was getting out in the start but I had no problem. The run went well up until about the 3K mark, when my mind said, "Wouldn’t it be nice to just take a little break?" So, I go through my checklist….are your feet hurting? No. Are your calves tired? No. Are your quads on FIYAH? They are a little warm…..OK, ok NO! "So then let’s giddy up girl!!" I try to zone out for a bit by watching the persons shoes in front of me, which happens to be a boy of about 7 years old…yeah, I said in front of me. I hit the 4k mark and know it’s time to start picking it up so I start just stretching out my stride a little and then I see the finish line and about 2 to 300 yards out start to build up some speed until I hit mach super-duper hyper speed. Riiiggghhhht! But I did pass 10 or so people on the way there and feel like I could have kicked a little earlier which will be something I work on now. So, I wanted to finsih in under 24 minutes, which I did at 23:33. I got 1st place in my age division and came in 15th overall out of 338 other women. Not too bad for an old girl running her second race!! Next run……The Arnold with Frogprincess72 and hopefully Nursenic! Thanks to everyone who wished me luck and supported me along the way!!

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 15th, 2009 at 6:56 am and is filed under Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.