Nike Women's Half (this is long. i'm sorry. i suck at writing)
i should be studying for finals, because i graduate in 11 days. but, since i'm such an awesome student i spent time calculating how poorly i can do on the final and still pass, and i can get a 42 and still pass. so. instead i shall tell you about my COMPLETELY AMAZING AND KICK ASS TIME AT THE NIKE WOMEN'S HALF IN DC.
....yeah. you read that right. completely amazing and kick ass. since when am i that stoked about a half? especially one that i was pretty sure was going to kill me. anyways. i flew to Baltimore on Friday and my friend Erica picked me up. we immediately headed to the Metro to go to Georgetown for packet pick up. it was POURING down rain the entire time and the walk from the metro stop to packet pick up was quite the hike. but i just purchased a new north face rain coat...so...i lived. turns out i'm not a witch - no melting here. this was the weirdest expo i've ever been to - you walked in one tent to get your bib, another to get your shirt, and then another tent for the expo...but they really weren't selling anything there, just showing you what you could buy at the Nike store up the street. and of course i had to go and buy ALL THE THINGS because...Nike. so i walked around the expo and took pictures with lots of things and then headed up the street to the Nike store with my friend.
on the side of the Nike Georgetown store was the mural of all the names of the participants running the half that weekend.
i got super lucky, my name was easy to spot as it was in white and part of the D in DC :D
it was awesome to see all of the support/advertising for the race throughout the city. everywhere you went there was a sign or banner. this is one of my favourite photos from the weekend - the large window outside of the Nike Store.
following shopping at the Nike store my friend and i went to dinner and ended the night with a trip to Georgetown Cupcakes - made famous by the TLC show "DC Cupcakes." Cupcakes would apparently turn out to be a big theme for the weekend as we stopped at a new cupcakery every day. Holy cow, i didn't realize a city could have so many cupcake shops, and they were all in the same area, too. There was about a 30 minute wait for the cupcakes, but it was well worth it. I ordered two - the peanut butter chocolate lava and the cherry blossom. We ate one at the store - PB chocolate lava for me and HOLY TOLDEO it was the best cupcake i have ever had. We had the second one back home later that night, and it was great too, but nothing will ever top that PB.
after cupcakes we walked back down to the expo area to see the sign at night.
Saturday we visited the Museum of Natural History, Air & Space Museum, Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, and then found our way back to Georgetown for more cupcakes.
Note to self: if I ever do this race again - DON'T WALK NEARLY 6 MILES THE DAY BEFORE. i just went to map my run and tried to map out what we walked (to the best of my ability) and the map says 5.59MI (not including the walking around in the museums)...that was stupid. more food. more cupcakes. more walking. We got home about 7:30PM and i showered and just crashed for the night. Around 11 i made my way up to my room to lay out my race gear and go to sleep. i'm convinced i'll never go to sleep before midnight for a race.
the alarm went off at 4:17AM and that was kind of dreadful. i was a bit of a walking zombie all morning...but not Erica. she was wide awake...some how. we split up at metro stations so i could head to the start and she could go cheer. i wasn't super excited at the start, mainly because i was tired and knew i was under trained. but at least i had some pretty views of the capitol and the attractive Nike Training Club instructor that they placed on a platform in our corral to lead warm up...
Finally it was time to go, and we were off. Less than a mile in i managed to find a ditch and roll my ankle, but fortunately it only hurt for a split second and didn't mess me up physically of mentally. Early on in the race we got a spectacular view of the Capitol, i told myself no pictures this race, but when am i ever going to be that close to the Capitol AND have no one in front of it ever again?
i was completely amazed at how quickly the miles were going. i've never been really good at writing race re-caps, mainly because i don't notice that much about races. i put in my headphones and run. so i'll just jump to all of the cool stuff - i felt REALLY good the entire race. i stuck with 1:1 intervals for pretty much the whole thing, and that never happens to me. Normally i'll chug along with my intervals till about 6 and then i'll decide i'm really tired and i'll walk a full mile, throw in some intervals, and walk one or two full miles. there were moments when my brain would try and say "you deserve to walk a mile" and then i'd glance down at my watch and see how fast the miles were falling away and i'd have the little voice of my OTF trainer in my head saying "3...2...1...go" and i'd kick off on my next running interval. "you can do anything for one minute" because my constant little chant through the race. i didn't feel REALLY tired (like "oh. i've hit the wall" tired) until ELEVEN POINT FIVE. i did consistent intervals for ELEVEN AND A HALF MILES. and at the point, i let myself walk to 12. so i only walked for a half mile, and then i got right back to my intervals. i am absolutely amazed and so proud that that's all i needed to get back into the swing of things. Erica was cheering me on, and i saw her at 12.5 and screamed "I'M GOING TO PR!" at which point she told me to run faster...and i did. i crossed the finish line with arms held high knowing that i had just PR'd and done SO MUCH better than Princess...which is kind of crazy knowing i hadn't really run since that race (i had done 1 5k and that was just a week ago). finishing time was 2:48:05 on my watch.
crossing the finish line was also hugely exciting because i knew that that little blue box from Tiffany & Co was waiting for me as well as some attractive men in tuxedos. walked through the water line (they were giving out re-useable water bottles with the race logo on them - that was a sweet bonus!), grabbed a chocolate milk, and then hit up the med tent to throw a bag of ice on my ankle before getting my finishers pendant. stood in line to take a picture with the Tiffany's boxes, and then was reunited with Erica.
Erica had apparently befriended one of the race directors and told him that they should have had him in a tuxedo handing out necklaces because he was hot and that her "running daughter" (me) was about to finish and would obviously need to get a picture with him. She was telling me this story as he walked by so we had a weird pointing moment and he came over to say hi. i told him if we were gonna do a picture we'd have to do it right so...here he is proposing to me :P (Erica was cheering with Mickey gloves and he felt that it was totally necessary to wear one) and hey...any man with a Tiffany & Co box in hand is good by me.
so there you have it. that's the race. my official time was 2:48:00 which a) is cool because i get to say "2:48 flat" and b) is cool because it's a PR by 7min40sec and about 29 minutes faster than the PHM from February. my fastest mile was a 9'20" which is REALLY cool because it's definitely never happened before. normally my fastest miles are around 10:40...so, i'm not really sure how/why it happened...but it happened. and that was awesome. i had a couple of negative splits thrown in there as well...
All around, i've never been happier with myself. It's a really great feeling to see that the new gym i've joined is obviously working and while the scale is going NO WHERE (cause of cupcakes? maybe) i'm clearly gaining some level of fitness. there were a lot of achievements from this race: PR, fastest mile, fastest 10k, best use of run/walk intervals...so i'm really proud of myself. and hope to continue to get better.
as a side note: i think the ankle roll before mile 1 may actually be a bit of an injury. partially because i rolled it again after the finish (someone shoved me and i hit ANOTHER pot hole) and when i woke up Monday it was definitely in some pain and still is. i think it's a high ankle sprain. i went back to the gym today but couldn't run and i'm still in a decent amount of pain so i'll give it a few more days and then call the doctor...here's to hoping it heals quickly because i'd really like to take this momentum from the race and go with it.
...i'm still kind of amazed at this weekend. what a high.
