this is a mixed bag of sorts - lots of fun in Eugene this week, but not a very good HM for me. (cross post from Kick) The short version: 2:00:29 OA: 865/2628 AG: 48/197 OA Females: 390/1819 The longer version: The morning started out great, despite so little sleep the night before, but I was feeling good, head cold seemed to be almost gone, the 2.5 miles I ran EZ the night before with Opie felt great and I was jazzed for a new PR IF things felt good (PR is 1:54) . . . big IF considering I’ve hardly run over the past 4 wks (runner’s tip #1: the 4 wk taper plan doesn’t work very well), had a bit of a injury setback, and then a nasty head cold 3 days before the race. I was relying on adrenaline to give me a big push that I would probably need. Souci (my angel in pink) ran with me the entire race. We started out with the 8:30 pace group and I think we were doing okay for about the first 7 miles. I did not usually see the mile markers – it was a congested course at times – but saw mile marker 7 at one hour, so I knew that for me, that was a pretty decent pace. Running with Souci was like running with a celebrity – her pink boa, orange shorts and pink tutu – the crowds loved her and her infectious running spirit – high 5’ing the kids, waving at the cheering fans, smiling all the way. Things quickly changed for me by about the time I hit mile 9. I could feel myself deteriorating and slowing down too much. Souci was a bit ahead of me and more and more space starting separating us. She would glance over her shoulder and see that I was falling back and then slow down, or even at times, come to a walk to allow me to catch up with her. I was not feeling good at this point. I was just trying to knock off one mile at a time and not focus on four more dreadfully long miles to go. My IT band started hurting somewhere between mile 9 and 10. (haven’t had IT pain in about 1.5 yrs, so was not happy about this). When we hit mile 10, I knew I just had one more mile until we picked up John – I tried to focus on each mile and what there was to look forward to. As we were coming up on mile 11, I saw John with his big flower hat on. Now I had a pink tutu’d diva on one side and a guy in a flower hat on the other. I felt so boring at this point! LOL Actually, I felt like shit at this point. If Souci and John weren’t with me, I know I would have walked. I’m glad they were there, not only to distract me from my pain, but to keep me running, albeit slow. 10:00 to 10:30 min/miles maybe? As we were about .5 mile away maybe, I could hear the loudspeakers at Autzen, so I knew we were close, but couldn’t see anything, so wasn’t sure how much farther we had. I honestly remember so very little about these last two miles. Later on as I was watching the marathoners come in and seeing the route and how the path makes some turns coming into the finish, I had no recollection of running on that. And I have very little memory of actually crossing the finish line. I know I’ll have more dreadful photos to add to our collection. I’ve already seen one course photo and it is pretty bad of me. After I collected my finisher’s medal, a chocolate milk and some cookies, I headed over to LabDuck’s vehicle for the tailgater party. Lessons learned: This half-marathon hurt me. I’ve run up to 18 miles before and felt a heck of a lot better then I did after running even the first 10 miles of this HM, BUT it was worth it because I learned some valuable lessons. First, running less than 60 miles for an entire month before this race was not smart. Granted I had an injury and needed to back off running. But in reality, I wasn’t ready to run 13 miles, but there was no way I was not going to run this race with all the masters that were coming to Eugene. Second, hydration. Important stuff. At the end of the race, I looked at my water bottle that I carry with me and realized I only drank about ¼ of the water/mix I had. I probably took a total of 5 sips off my bottle the entire race, so I’m thinking I only took in about 3-4 oz of liquid. I was dehydrated and my muscles were screaming at me from about mile 9 for some nutrition, and I was thinking I hurt so much simply from lack of training this month. I know that had something to do with, but I was also dehydrating myself (tmi alert: it took me almost 5 hrs AFTER the race before I needed to use the bathroom – that’s too long). So, not a very good half marathon performance for me, but this was definitely a PR weekend as far as fun goes – would not have missed out on this for anything. Thanks for reading.

Tammy, Congratulations on a great race. Maybe not as fast or feeling as good as you might have wanted to but you did it on fairly low training volume. So that augers well for your next half marathon if you train more. Congratulations and thank you for the great report. Tall

Isn't that SS a gem? I'd say that pink TuTu sure gets around.... Glad she was there to help you out, but Tammy YOU were the one who ran and completed this race! I do agree with Tet though, you should have had more to drink... Good thing it wasn't hotter out yesterday. Congratulations, now it's over and you can learn from your experience and get ready for the next thing. Your first marathon is still out there waiting for you!

Golly, Tammy, you sure had a lot going against you and still had a good half. I'd say you ran that race on heart and guts. It's neat you had a good time with other boomers and got to run with SansSouci. Congratulations. TomS

Well, some runs are good and some runs are bad. It sucks when a bad run coincides with a race day, though. Why couldn't all race days be days when you're feeling inexplicably sproinky? Oh, well, one of the many mysteries of running. And certainly, being sick and injured prior to the race, and not hydrating properly, would suck even more sproink from your legs. Glad you had a good time with the other Boomers, though. Rest up. There will be many more opportunities to race when you're ready.

Enke: I'm sorry I missed you also after the race, but am very glad we got to sit at the same table and chat for the Saturday dinner. It really was MY pleasure to finally get to meet you. I did not record any splits on my timex (not up with the garmin world yet). Souci wore her polar so she probably has all the stat deets though. The little printout we got after the race though showed my 10K time at 56 min, which I think is only about a minute slower than my PR? I was planning on recording the splits, but then after I missed like the first 4 mile markers, I just decided to bag it. If I was feeling good, Souci was going to bring me in at about a 1:50 - so I just sort of put it all in her hands, but never anticipated falling apart like I did towards the end and just couldn't push it. I'm sorry you were not feeling well either during your marathon. Lessons learned, eh?

I wouldn't be thinking very clearly either if I had SS running with me the entire time! Awww Tammy, I'm really sorry this was such a tough go for you. I was really hoping that with all the stuff you dealt with in the weeks and days leading up to this race that somehow things would come together for you. As you said, you learned a lot and had a great weekend with a lot of fun people and that is priceless. Rest well, pick up the pieces, and give it all another go.

Hey......it sounds good to me. With all that you had going against you?.....you STILL finished. It sounds like all of you had a great time of meeting and that makes the day special. For this aspect, you can be thankful. With all of the running that you do, I am sure you will learn from the lessons here and come back to run a HM that absolutely thrills you and that becomes just all the MORE special after this day. Your lack of hydration and the lack of quality miles leading up to the race would be key. Thanks for sharing this report......and CONGRATULATIONS on a solid finish. Joey