Today was....

...wet. Cold. Windy. Freezing. Miserable.

Pre Teaser Recap

Where do I even start? I knew the weather was going to be less than optimal for running a good race. But it surpassed my worst expectation. The only thing missing was sleet and a tornado. I would not have been surprised in the least if both were out there somewhere during the 2+ hours I spent on the course. Yes, there was a PLUS behind that 2.

This race started off on the wrong foot...All day Saturday I spent outside in the blowing wind and sun building a HUGE garden at my parents house. I wouldn't change that for the world! It was great to spend time with my siblings and my parents with my nieces and nephew running around like we used to as kids! My brother, his little guy, my sister and her three girls, me and LB, and my mom and dad worked hard to plant the garden. My ears were sunburned and I did not stay hydrated like I should have.

Kiddos helping in the garden...by driving the jeep through the vineyard:

Playing in the Garden before the plants went in:

The Garden:

Needless to say Saturday was a busy day. I hit the hay around 10:30 PM and got up at 4:25 AM. I ate my Peanut Butter toast as usual and drank my coffee. We headed out only 10 minutes behind schedule, right on time. After some exchanging of LB for my cousin we headed downtown. It was a nice 50 degrees outside when we got in the car. I thought briefly it was going to be a nice morning to run. As soon as we hit the turnpike the drops started falling and lightening was striking. Not good. The race was supposed to start at 6:30 and we were stuck in traffic at 6. Not good. Luckily I got a text from Jessica at Love to Hate It telling us the start was delayed until 7. Good. We wouldn't be too late. We found a spot and made our way to the waiting spot, a swanky downtown office, Taps Architecture, owned by an OC Alum (where I went to college, I was running on Team OC). It was nice to have a warm, dry building to wait in and bathrooms with running water.

I was trying to text and tweet people I had meant to meat up with when I dropped my iPhone. It flashed, "No Sim Card." and was out for the count. Not good. I spent the next 10 minutes fretting over my phone. My sister was slightly alarmed by my mini freak out I think as we made our way to the start..in a wet mess of people. I told her, "Don't mind me. I'm just having a mini freak out."

The start this year was chaotic, to put it nicely. With the weather delay and the rain people waited until the last possible minute to get to the start. We were stuck for a while and had a hard time getting into the shoot. Finally we made it, I pushed my way in and towards the 9 min pace sign. I lost my sister and cousin. I had been back and forth about running with them. I thought about going out and really pushing it to try to finish in time to run with LB in the kids 1.2 mile race. It would have had to have been a PR. But wasn't sure I had it in me. The Hubs told me to just go out and use it as a training run, since I do have 70.3 in two weeks. Oh yeah. Either way I was on my own.

I was so poorly prepared for the weather. On Monday when I packed the forecast did not say it would be wet OR cold. But as the week went on it became clear it would be a wet and cold day. I found a jacket on clearance at JC Penny that I thought would keep my dry. It kept me warm for a while but dry, not so much. I had shorts and really, really wished I would have had my capris. I did have my CEP socks, but as I was reminded today I am not a fan of actually running in them. More on that later...Back to the weather. It was not good. We started out at the house at 50 degrees and the temps would drop down to 40 during the course of the race, with rain.

We didn't take any pictures. It was too crazy, wet and cold for that nonsense and plus my phone was on the fritz. It wasn't until we got home and I thawed out a little bit before I had my niece snap this photo, sig pose of course:

I finished the race in 2:04 something. It was not my best but not my worst, by far. It rivaled Portland in misery. Portland was twice as long, distance and time, bit today was twice as cold and about as miserable. I just kept thinking, THANK GOODNESS I AM OT DING THE FULL. Ugh. More on the actual race tomorrow or Tuesday, since I will be traveling back to NC tomorrow. I just wanted to give you a quick mini-recap teaser.