Tallahassee Race Week
This was my week leading up to race day:
Monday – 8.05 km nice and easy. I ran this on my home treadmill in a time of 47:39
Tuesday – Bowling night and then we set off for Tallahassee so we could cross the border when it would be very quiet and quick.
Wednesday – 6.4 km nice and easy which I did in the morning on the treadmill in the hotel. It was very hot and humid and hard work for such a short, slow run. Time of 38 minutes.
Thursday – Day off, spent travelling
Friday – Arrived in Tallahassee and ran 6.5 km on the hotel treadmill. Again hot and humid.
Saturday – Day off.
So, here it was, race day. Wow, that came around really quickly.
The race start time was 07:30 the sun was not yet out. It was warm but not hot so ideal running weather, no excuses allowed. I was looking forward to the run as I knew I would find it very challenging. Hills are not my speciality and boy was this course hilly. After the first 4 miles I changed my hill strategy as I realized they were already sapping my energy. I ran half the hill and then did speed walking up to nearly the top and then started running again. All the downs I ran at the fastest pace that felt comfortable and I quickly noticed that I was easily passing on the downs all those who had overtaken me when I was walking part of the up. Not only that, I felt good doing this. I no longer felt my energy being sapped.
The weather was great for running. It was a bit windy but that was great as it stopped me overheating. Most of the Floridians I talked to were not happy about the wind but when you have trained in -25c temperatures it is easy to overheat when running in Florida, so I was very happy.
On I ran, up and down, hill after hill. The race director had said they were using this route now as it highlighted the best things to see in Tallahassee. Mmmmm! It may well do this but I certainly didn’t notice. Tally is a beautiful, friendly city but I can’t say that my view of the city, was reinforced or altered in anyway by running this route. I was concentrating on taking my mind off the route in the hope that I wouldn’t notice the hills. This didn’t work either, hehe!
There was one point in the race when I laughed out loud and found myself chuckling for the next few kilometers. There were volunteers along the route holding hand written placards, with encouraging words on them. I had the opportunity to write one of these at the expo and I think I wrote something totally inspirational (not) and banal like “Believe and you will do it.” I have to admit I am not someone that is inspired by reading these things when I am running along. I remember one year here in Saint John someone had written “inspirational” quotes on the road along a race route. That did absolutely nothing for me either. Not that I mind them being there, if it helps some people then go for it. Back to Tally. We had just completed yet another hill, when as I ran around a bend in the road, there was this smiling FSU student holding her placard which read, “There are no more hills. #alternativefacts” I gave her a thumbs up as I laughed and told her that I really liked that one. That was definitely more in keeping with my type of inspirational, I continued chuckling up the next couple of hills at least.
Looking back on my stats, my slowest kilometer, apart from the last one, was kilometer 17. This wasn’t just because it was all uphill, it was also all steep up. I could hardly walk the second half, let alone run it! But what goes up, eventually goes down and so half way into kilometer 18 I started to go down. Yay!
Suddenly I found myself about to start kilometer 21, the last full km and the steepest incline on the whole course. Don’t you just love it when the steepest hill is right at the end of a course? It was only just the steepest at 30 meter gain but still, right at the finish, come on. However, knowing it was the last gave me a boost and I ran up the hill, slowly, but I got to the top. This is when my problems began. I started feeling sick. As I rounded a bend I could see the finish line and if it had been straight to the finish I may have made it but you had to go round a small block of buildings and double back to the finish. Apologies for my description of the next bit but I started to throw up. The finish line is there and I start retching. I thought it would pass but unfortunately it didn’t. I was guided over to the side of the road and there I sat, on the edge of the sidewalk, whilst I continued to violently throw up. Eventually it stopped. I was asked if I wanted a medic, not likely. I had run 21 km and was not going to give up with the finish line in view. On I ran and crossed the line in 2 hours 4 minutes 30 seconds. Not fast but fast enough to get third place in my age group and a nice trophy to go with my finisher’s medal.
That was my Tallahassee Half. My awesome husband finished the marathon and we celebrated with a lovely meal and nice bottle of red. We set off for home the following morning, early and arrived back in Lorneville 4:30 Tuesday afternoon after some stellar driving by Michael. We managed to miss most of the snow storm apart from a section in Massachusetts and Maine.
I have two non-running highlights of the week. The first was spending a lovely week with Michael and the second was seeing our cute whippets again. I miss them when I am away.
Thanks again to everyone who has supported and encouraged me throughout this adventure.
Woohoo!
