Buffy’s Race Report: Run For Life Half Marathon - October 9, 2010

This is, hopefully, the first in my trilogy of race reports from October 2010. I don’t want to jinx my upcoming events – we all know things can happen to either stop you from getting to the start line or stop you from crossing the finish line! Anyway, I’m going to think positive, so here it is – the first of three reports (again, hopefully!). I’m going to call this trilogy “My Family is Trying to Kill Me.”

“My Family is Trying to Kill Me Part I: The Fellowship of the Ring Run”

My mother called me awhile back and informed me that she finally, after much searching, found a half marathon with a description that suited her. She has been interested in participating in a half for some time now, but she likes to run/walk so she has been concerned with race time cutoffs at many events. Also, she and my dad are the world’s biggest UT football (and all other UT sports) fans, so a race could not coincide with a UT football game. She was reading Runner’s World and found an ad for the Run For Life Marathon and Half Marathon in Madison, Mississippi on October 9^th. This race encourages walkers to participate and it has a very long race cutoff time. Also, October 9^th was a by week for UT football – perfect circumstances for Mom. She asked if I would like to go with her and suggested that I run the full marathon so I wouldn’t be waiting on her to finish. At the time, I knew I had one other event in October so I was pretty sure I wasn’t into running the full. I agreed to go run the half and assured her that I had no problems waiting for her to finish – after all, then I would get to see her cross the finish line! I know right now some of you reading this may think I’m a bad daughter for not running next to my mom for the entire race. It does make me seem sort of crappy, but I assure you that she wanted me to run my race and she wanted to run her race. I actually think that sometimes this can be less pressure (to run separately) – no one worries about if they are pushing the other one too hard or if they are holding them back.

I left straight from work here in Austin on Thursday afternoon and drove back to my parents’ house in Beaumont. Mom and I got up early on Friday morning and made the six hour drive to Madison – a much more scenic drive than I would have expected! We got checked in to our hotel and headed off to packet pickup. This is a pretty small race, so I didn’t expect too much at packet pickup, but once we got there I was very impressed with it. It wasn’t huge, but they had four or five vendors with tables set up and loads of volunteers to direct people around. It was super well organized. After that, we got some dinner, walked around a nice little outdoor shopping area, and then headed back to our hotel for the night. Long car rides exhaust me even though physically I’m not doing anything. I turned off the light and rolled over to sleep around 9:30pm – seriously, I can’t remember the last time I went to bed at 9:30pm on a Friday night…it might have been in the third grade!

Our alarms went off at 5:00am and Mom headed out for a short little warm up walk. In true “me” fashion, I hit the snooze button and fell back asleep. I got up shortly after that and started getting race ready. I got my snazzy RLE running kit on and my super awesome new “Sweet and Twisted” arm warmers. They are beyond cool-looking – I wish I had taken a better photo to attach to this race report! I put my hair in my now customary race pigtails and we were set to go. It took us all of 5 minutes to get from our hotel to the race start. Small races definitely have their perks! It was warmer than Mom and I had expected it to be. She went out in just her regular running clothes (no “throw away” clothes to stay warm). I wore my arm warmers, but honestly I could have probably gone without them - except they are so awesome looking that I think they made me faster.

There was a free car giveaway with all the race participants’ names entered into the drawing. We were very disappointed that we didn’t win, but how cool is that?! A free car give-away at a race with only around 470 participants! Definitely another reason to register for that race.

Then there were various announcements/messages from race officials, the national anthem, and it was time to get moving. I actually seeded myself appropriately for this race for once. I’m not typically very good at lining up where I should. I just don’t like to push my way forward, but this race was small enough that I was able to just walk up to my estimated pace corral. I barely had to weave around other runners at all, which was really nice. I felt pretty good for the first couple of miles. My pace was a bit faster than I expected it would be (barely under an 8:00minute/mile pace). I was slightly worried that I was starting out too fast, but my competitive tendencies didn’t want me to slow down. We cut through some neighborhoods and then were out on a fairly major looking road without much scenery. They had very nice cheer groups out on the course though, and this part was an “out and back” portion of the course so we could see the front runners, which I always love.

I noticed through the first 8 or 9 miles or so that I was constantly leap-frogging a guy and a girl running together. I’d pass them downhill and they’d pass me uphill. Also, they were doing the run/walk method and were very consistently walking a portion of each mile. I’d pass them when they’d walk and then they’d pass me once they started running again. Around mile 10 it was starting to get very warm and there wasn’t much shade. In addition to the heat, I had been maintaining a fairly fast pace for my current running ability. As much as I was determined to hang on to that couple, they totally dropped me around mile 10. It was a bit disheartening to see them off in the distance, but I kept pushing along. I could tell that I was slowing down, but not by too, too much. At mile 11, I pushed my arm warmers down as it finally got too warm for them (however, I really enjoyed them for the first 10 miles and I’m glad I had them on).

I like to try to trick myself when I’m racing and getting tired. It works really well for me – I start telling myself things like “okay, you only have a 5K left and you can totally run a 5K” or “ just 2 miles left – you can run two miles with the flu and no sleep” and my favorite “just 1 mile – you can always run 1 mile…1 mile is cake.” My normal reasoning totally worked on me until the last mile. That one hurt. Looking back on it, I think I maybe didn’t drink quite enough at the water stops and I think I probably went out a bit too fast. Then again, only the last mile really hurt and I ended up really happy with my race results! I was hoping to maybe PR, because really, who isn’t always hoping to PR? I didn’t make it, but I wasn’t too far off – just 2 or 3 minutes. Also, as this was a smaller race, I placed better than I probably ever will in my whole life so I’m going to take this time to brag just a little. I ended up 40^th overall, 9^th female, and 2^nd in my age group (3^rd if you count that the overall female winner was in my age group). And that was out of 468 people! I’m still totally psyched about it. They didn’t do an awards ceremony or anything, but I didn’t need it – just to see those number next to my name on the print out and online was enough for me. I’m thinking about printing it out and framing it. I’m not joking.

And on to the even cooler part of the event – my mom’s finish. After I finished, I headed to the car to grab my cell phone in case she called (she was running with her cell). I walked partway back to the finish line and cheered on some runners as they made the last turn in to their finish. Then I headed back to the finish line and lounged around for a bit. I used this time to start tracking the Kona Ironman coverage online from my phone. Mom had told me that she expected to finish in around 3 hours 30 minutes. With about 40 minute left to wait, I got up to go check out the results and grab some more water. As I was walking around I heard the announcer say, “and from Beaumont, Texas…” and I knew that had to be Mom. I turned and literally sprinted to the finish line so I wouldn’t miss her big finish. As I was running up I saw her running down to the finish line with the biggest smile on her face and her arms raised in the air. It was all I could do not to burst into tears, I was so happy and proud. Just typing this out makes me get all choked up again, too. She finished in under 3 hours – more than 30 minutes faster than she expected and second in her age group. Seeing her finish her first half marathon was way better than finishing my own first half marathon.

After I collected myself and we got Mom some post-race food and water (great cookies and fruit out there, by the way – they even had nectarines, and they were so good) we headed to sit in the shade. We watched the marathoners and the rest of the half marathoners finish their races while we waited to get Mom’s medal engraved with her name and time. Not everyone thinks that is important, but I think it just makes your medal a bit more special when it has your information on it – totally worth the little extra bit of money. Once we collected Mom’s engraved medal we headed back to the hotel, got cleaned up and headed back home. Following the Ironman Kona updates from my phone made for a pretty short feeling ride home, although Mom was probably irritated that I kept interrupting her listening to various football games on the radio to tell her what was happening in the world of Ironman!

To wrap this all up I’d just like to say that I feel so lucky that I got to take this trip with my mother and share in her first half marathon experience. I’m beyond impressed with that lady.