Survived, barely….

This morning I got up at 5:15 AM so I could run 20 miles.

RED and I signed up for the JBLM 1/2 Marathon a few weeks ago. We decided to go early and run 7 miles before the race. We started running by 6:45 AM and the race start was 8. So we went around the airfield (it was on Post) and past the starting point for another mile and a half until we had to turn around in order to make it to the start. We arrived at the start with about 10 min to spare and G.Money registered about 6.7 miles. This meant I would have to make some distance up at the end of the half.

I changed shoes and socks and put some extra body glide on a hot spot that was developing. This is what it looked like after 20 miles:

A STUPID blood blister.

RED and I decided to do this half marathon as part of our 20 miler because we thought it would be a good idea to have water stops and people around us to keep us motivated. The race advertised water stops every 2 miles so in our transition from the 7 mile warm up to the 13.1 I put my Nathan handheld water bottle in the car. I didn’t want to bother with it. Our first water stop was mile 3.5 ish (10.5 miles for us). I was pretty thirsty by then. The next water stop was not until mile 7 (or 14 for us). I was DYING. I was considering licking pine needles since they were glistening with left-over rain water. It was awful. I could feel my body fatiguing and becoming seriously sluggish. We finally came up on the water stop. They were behind filling cups so we had to stand and wait for a good half a minute. I wanted more but there were other runners who hadn’t had any yet. I asked where we could expect the next one: “uh….about mile 10.” Great. 3 miles until I could get another drink.

It really wasn't hot. It was about 64 degrees maybe, but it was humid and the sun was shining. Nonetheless we were thirsty. We were looking forward to mile 10 water stop before this mile 7 one was out of sight. We slowed our pace and did a quick inventory check and found that we both were hurting. My leg, left knee and hip was hurting. RED’s back and stomach was hurting. We were quite the pair I am sure. I wanted to wear a sign that said TODAY WE ARE RUNNING 20 MILES. Either way we ran and did some walking too…

Mile 10 (17 for us…) came and we passed the mile marker with no water stop in site. I saw a Jeep driving towards us with a bright, neon green shirt shining through the window. I flagged it to stop and I asked the driver, “Is there a water stop soon?” He told us it was about half a mile away. In the front passenger seat was a poor runner who looked close to death. RED told him “There aren’t enough water stops on this course.” and he replied, “Yeah, someone else said that too.” Well, DUH. We finally came to the next stop at about 10.5 miles (mind you for us it was 17.5 miles). I had three cups of water. As we ran on we had to move out of the way for about 4 emergency vehicles. No surprise there. I hoped I hadn’t slowed down the guy who had the casualty in the front seat.

RED and I stuck together until about mile 18ish. She was teetering on serious dehydration and having stomach aches along with back aches. I just wanted to be finished. She gave me a Good Game Bootie Smack and I ran on.

I ran up on the next water stop at around mile 12 (mile 19). What in the world? I ran to the finish. Finally. BUT I had to run another quarter mile to hit 20. There was no way I was going to stop at 19.74 miles. So I turned and ran back toward the course to find RED. By the time I hit 20 I heard my name and turned to see she was already done! Yay!! So I turned and jogged back to meet her. Finally, done for real.

Stats:

20 Miles-3:15.10 Average Pace—9:53

I’m so glad to have this run done….

I came home and took a nice long ice bath…and LB helped by splashing me….brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Me after the run:

Me and RED

RED…isn’t she cute?