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Sunday, March 22, 2009
I ran my third Half marathon at the inaugural Pasadena Marathon in the rain this morning. My friends, Jackie and Denise joined me at the race to run the 5K. Jackie placed 2nd in her age group!
Jackie and I left at 5am and got stuck in race traffic for almost an hour. We made it just in time for the start of the Marathon and Half. The rain was coming down hard as we headed to the starting area. Of course the porta potty line was long and I started my race late. I felt great though, I had my new ipod shuffle playing my favorite running songs and a new visor to keep the rain out of my eyes. I ran the first 5 miles with energy and had to keep slowing my pace because I felt like I was flying over the rolling hills of Pasadena.
The rain started again with a downpour when I reached 5.75 miles. I ran with my arms out and welcomed the rain. It energized me and I felt like this was going to be the best run of my life.
Around mile 6.5 my new shuffle started to cut out. By mile 7 it was dead and I was music-less. I ran towards the Rose Bowl and tried my best not to let it psyche me out but not having music or a running buddy forced me to listen to my breathing. I'm not good with listening to my breathing. I have mild exercised induced asthma and listening to my breathing during a race tends to stress me out.
I worked through it trying to focus on the view of Pasadena's amazing bridges just ahead of me. By mile 8 I took a walk break. The first time I've walked in a Half Marathon. I picked back up and at mile 9 I stopped at a restroom next to the Rose Bowl. Again, the first time I've stopped to potty in a race. I got back to the race and powered on to the hill at Mile 10.
I almost called Jackie for morale support but thinking about her and Denise running a 5K and thinking that was all I had left to do was a 5K helped. I jogged up the hill and continued on. I kept looking at my forerunner thinking that if I still had music, that this race would have been a PR but I didn't think it possible by mile 11. My achilles tendon in my left ankle was starting to ache. A new pain for me.
I tried to push a little more out of my lungs and managed to run on sheer will power to beat my first Half Marathon time but not my second. My chip time was 2:18:14 (my PB Half is 2:16:31 for Surf City and my first Half was 2:19:33 for The City of Angels) and according to BiM this race course was the most difficult of the 3.
So I will take away from the race that I can run hills really well now. Despite all my problems on the race, the hills didn't psyche me out. Which is going to help when I do my next Half Marathon in San Francisco. I also need more sleep before a race, less stress at work, new running shoes and maybe a backup ipod. LOL
P.S. Thom had to work late and we missed the Pub Crawl Saturday night. I was disappointed but we had a lovely evening together and hung out till 10 o'clock when I went home to get better sleep since his dog Ben tends to sleep on me and take up half the bed. LOL