I am in my last semester at UIC (if I pass everything) and this includes Physical Chemistry 2, Physical Chemistry Lab, and Advanced Organic Chemistry. What does this have to do with a race report, you ask? Well, because I also work full time and overnight, and since these classes are taking a ton of time and effort, I did not have time to train like I would and should have for this race. I never ran farther than 15 miles before yesterday. That means I increased my mileage by 11.2 miles in one day. Kinda dumb. Very painful.
I knew this was going to hurt going in, so I was mentally as ready as I could be. I raised over $1000 for my charity (The Chicago Police Memorial Foundation) and thank you to those of you who donated!! Since I raised money and people were excited to see how I'd do, I felt obligated to race even though I was unprepared.
I knew I could finish, but I set no time goals for the race. I thought when I signed up I could come in under 4.5 hours. I threw that goal out the window when I hardly ran at all in past last month.
Anyway, I was at the charity tent at 5:30am Sunday morning... Way too early but I was excited and ready to go. At race start I lined up in the 4.5 hour pace group just for kicks. I have never been in such a massive crowd of people. The energy was awesome. The gun went off and we didn't move for at least 7 or 8 minutes. When we did, everyone was cheering and waving to cameras when we crossed the start line. It was crowded but I had enough room to run comfortably most of the time. The spectator crowd was amazing. People lined the streets almost the entire distance of the race.
I felt good and was running comfortably until mile 10 when I started to feel a blister forming on my right foot. I was more than a little concerned about this because that's really early in the race to start with the blisters. My shoes were broken in and socks chosen carefully so I have no idea why this happened. Oh well. Keep running.
I still felt good until mile 16 or so when I realized I hadn't seen a friend cheering for me on the course yet. What a bummer. I knew they were out there, but it's so crowded I couldn't find anyone and vice versa. I found my mom and my friend Ryan at mile 17 and stopped to give hugs all around. I was beginning to hurt here, just all over. My hips were especially painful. I think it is from pounding the pavement for so long. Whenever I train I run on the lakefront path on the sandy part for some cushion.
I have to admit that it just got worse from here. Ryan was running the last 9 miles with me for support, which was awesome but I couldn't even talk to him anymore after mile 20 or so. At first it was my hips, then my knees, then my ankles, then my feet. The blister was completely forgotten by now - the pain replaced by everything else. Every step sent shooting pain up my leg. I felt my toenails getting blistered and I knew I was going to lose at least one of them. The only thing that could have made this worse is chafing, which thankfully I did not have. I used a ton of assos cream on my running tights and body glide everywhere else and I think it worked.
There was a time, around mile 23 I think, when my run pace was only slightly faster than the people walking around me. I was still running, but barely. I stopped to walk the aid stations and a few times for some stride outs in between, but for the most part, I ran the whole race. I've had painful races before (Trek 100 anyone?? LOL) but this was bad. I'm just stubborn and wouldn't quit. My last mile was my fastest mile split of the race. :-) I knew it was almost over and I picked it up because I just didn't want to be out there anymore. Then I saw the finish and gave it everything I had left, which wasn't much. My face had to be a priceless *Faces of Pain* moment. But I did finish. A little over 5 1/2 hours. ugh.
The moral of the story? Prepare for races. And toenails are for sissies.
Congrats to everyone else who finished!! Whether or not you made your time goal, 26.2 miles is something to respect - even if you have to crawl across the finish line.
Happy racing,
~Amy
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment