Friday, September 14, 2007

IU Mini Marathon Race Report

Last weekend I completed my second half-marathon. Thankfully, I finished and didn't do too bad. I ran it in 2:15:22.1, which is a pace of 10:20. While this may sound amazing to some of you out there, it really isn't anything fabulous. I am always surprised by the people that pass me along the way (see below). I am just glad I finished, which is always my goal. I am less concerned about the time, especailly at mile 9 when my legs are hurting!

The morning was cool, but extremely humid even at 8am. I was soaking wet by the end of the race - wetter than I have ever been after running. It made it hard to wipe off my face while running and it didn't help I got water spilled on myself in the water stations and a spectator on the course hosed me off even though I was trying to avoid the water to stay dry. Oh well!

The course was ridiculously hilly. I can't believe how many hills we had run up, and it seemed we hardly ran down any hills! Anyway, when the race started I had to go pee before the end of the first mile despite going 5 times before the race. I kept looking for a port-a-potty on the race course, but there were none, so I ran off the race course, hit the Villiage Panty on 10th Street by Eigenmann Hall to pee. This all happened between mile 4 and 5. Of course, they started having port-a-potties at the mile 6 water station. Ugh! The water stations were okay. They had a lot, but sometimes you had to wait for them to fill the water in the cups because they ran out of filled ones. Some people said they completely ran out of water last year, so I am glad they fixed that problem this year. I think they just need more volunteers to fill cups to make the stations go faster. (Note to self: volunteer for a race someday to help out.)

I was fine until mile 9, but then started to get really tired and started getting side stitches. I walked a lot of the last 3-4 miles and had to keep stopping to stretch out my side stitiches, so I actually thought I did worse than the Indy Mini. I was shocked when I beat my time even with all the walking. But, even with beating my time, this little grey-haired lady passed me just after mile 11. She ended up beating me by a few minutes and I looked her up on the list of finishers. She is 67!! All I can say is that I hope I can run that fast when I am almost 70!!! She rocks!

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