"Insert Title Here"

I've waited till today to give my race report for a couple of reasons.  The first reason is because the results were supposed to be emailed to us by today, and I wanted to give you "official" results rather than just what I've got on my Garmin.  But, they still haven't arrived, and I'm feeling bad for not giving  you a race report.  The second is for embarrassment!  I thought of several titles for this post, and you can pick any one of them:

"Fail, Smitty, Fail!!!"

"Holy Half = Holy Hell"

"Hoorah for Run/Walkers"

"Bad Run, No Fun, Lots of Sun"

Any one of them will do.  It's just a matter of what part of the race you would like to focus on.  As you know from my last post, the weather for Sunday was very much on our minds this last week.  It kept changing and changing, and I wish it had stayed at 69* and T-showers.  Instead, it ended up being a blistering 85*.  Now, that's not really that hot, but it was such a huge change from all our training runs, that it cooked us!  I learned several lessons from this race, and I'll summarize them below.  But here is how the race went.

Jennifer and I woke up much earlier than needed to get down to South Bend, IN to the registration because we hadn't pre-registered.  We really wanted a race shirt, but we had heard that you could arrive on the day of the race and FOR SURE get one.  So, we busted our butts down there to be some of the first in line only to find out that the shirts were GONE!  What a bummer.  So now we had a couple hours to waste.  It was kind of nice to pick any port-a-potty that we wanted and be the first to use it.  We just people watched as the crowd began to grow.  Some of our friends, who had pre-registered and got a sweet tech shirt, arrived, so we got to hang out with them for a bit.  Nick knew his ITB's were not in shape for this race, so he came as the cheerleader for his wife, Taryn, who ran the 10k with one of her friends, Carolyn.  Josh, (you might remember him from when we worked on our aero position in this post), came ready for the race too.

We got all stretched out and ready.  I ended up wearing just a cotton t-shirt instead of a wicking shirt which was a bummer.  It was nice to have my new running hat to keep the blazing sun off my balding head.

 After everyone gathered behind the timing line, we heard the gun go off, and the Holy Half-Marathon had begun.  This was a much smaller half than my first which was the Atlanta Half-Marathon that Jennifer and I ran together on Thanksgiving day 2009.  There were about 1200 people at this one, but that might have been a few too many for the course.  We started on a road, but were soon directed to sidewalks.  I ended up running around people in the grass to get by them.  It was jammed!  The course ended up being a majority on sidewalks, some gravel trail running around the two lakes, and a little asphalt road running.  Here's what the two-lap course looked like:

People were everywhere, which I didn't really care about as long as I had a place to run.  I was super confident going into this race because I had smoked ALL of my long runs with great times and great paces.  All I had to do was run the pace that I knew I needed to get my goal of breaking 2 hours.  That's just 9:05's.

 As we were cruising along, I really was feeling pretty good, but as the sun warmed from the mild 65* when we arrived up to 85*, my body started to really feel it.  At mile 4, I was starting to feel a little drained.

 Jenn was feeling it too, but I'll let her tell you about it on her blog (HERE).  She'll be putting up her race report soon, so check back to here her side of the Holy Half.

 Taryn (on the right) and Carolyn (on the left) finished their 10k, and they looked strong...too bad I wasn't feeling so strong.  I was wasted and was just getting to the half-way mark.  Of course, I smiled for the cameras, but I was hurting!

I was already trying to figure out how much further I could go.  I had planned on the water stations and gatorade stations to satisfy and replenish me even though we were expecting such hot weather.  That was NOT happening.  I didn't have anything left in my body to burn up!  So I started trying to figure out what to do.  I had seen the back of this one guys shirt for most of the race, so I knew that he was running a similar pace to mine, so I decided to chat it up with him.  He went to Notre Dame, and we talked for the next two miles.  At mile 8.6, I basically ran out of gas.  What a failure!  I was totally jacked up in the head and didn't understand what was going on since I had dominated 12 miles the Sunday before.  I couldn't figure it out, but I had had about enough, so I decided to run/walk the rest.  I thought I might be able get a little recovery and then keep running.  My overall pace was about 8:44, so I had a little bit of time that I could recover with.  A really nice girl had stopped running at the same time I did, so we talked for a minute and then ran a solid chunk as we pushed each other along.  Again, I was overcome and slowed to a walk.  This went on for awhile.  Finally, I hooked up with a guy that was having the same trouble I was.  He had trained hard for this race but couldn't handle the crazy change in temperature.  Jenn and I had trained in 30's, 20's and even the teens, so this was insane compared to those runs.  This guy, Chris, and I pushed each other along, but I watched my goal disappear beneath the ticking digits of my watch.  It SUCKED!  I saw several people laying on the side of the road with paramedics and oxygen masks, and I felt lucky that I wasn't one of them.  Chris and I cranked up the pace for the last bit to rumble across the line with a sickening 2:12 at a 10:04/mile pace.  It was pretty crushing to have trained that hard and not even come close to my goal!

 Jenn was still on the course, so after a long drink, banana and bagel, I walked back on the course to find her.  I found her in about the same shape as me...walking!  We walked a bit and then ran on in to the finish line.  Josh grabbed someone's poster that they had made for another Jennifer.

 We grabbed another couple pictures with the runners (above) and the whole crew that came to support us (below).  What great friends we have!

 After a stop for something cold at Sonic, Jenn and I headed home to rest and recover from our grueling run.  I had been feeling a little pain at the end of my foot during the last half of the race, so I was interested to see what the problem was.  I found this when I took off my sock.

WARNING:  FOOT PICTURE AHEAD

WARNING:  FOOT PICTURE AHEAD

WARNING:  FOOT PICTURE AHEAD

I found out that I pinch my toes every time I take off from the ground.  It's going to take some work to train myself not to squeeze my toes every time I lift off.  This blister, and the one under the nail of the next toe, were pretty painful.  They have gone down a bit now, but I've got to try something different.

So here's the deal...  Jenn and I have lost all confidence in ourselves to run.  We want revenge on the half-marathon, so we're trying to figure out what to do.  This Sunday is supposed to be a high of 46, which is just about right to run 13.1 miles.  We're thinking about just running a route here in Berrien Springs and calling THAT our half-marathon.  What do you think?

THINGS I HAVE LEARNED FROM THE HOLY HALF

1. Don't ever rely on the water/gatorade stations at any race.  ALWAYS bring your own and plan better for nutrition.
2. Pre-register for events to get the shirt and avoid carrying around 5 extra pounds of sweat in your cotton t-shirt
3. Don't be too confident going into a race, because the downer if you suck, sucks!

I hope that you all had wonderful weekends and rocked your races!  I was thinking about you all during the race and only ran as far as I did because I didn't want to report to you that I wussed out.  Thanks for the motivation to get that far, and thanks for reading!