It came......and it went! Right now, I'm glad it's over. It's just a few hours post-race and my body is feeling every step! Of course yesterday was a beautiful day. Today's forecast called for rain and wind. They sure weren't wrong this time!! Why oh why could they not have gotten it wrong??! It started raining on the drive over to the farm. Well, if you wanted to call that a drive. Probably took us an hour to go about a mile. When we got on Newtown Pike, the traffic was not moving. Time kept passing, but we weren't getting anywhere. Twenty minutes before the race was to start and we were still quite a ways away. The only consolation was that there were LOTS of people behind us. And when we finally got to the farm, we had to park back in the boonies. We were hoping they would delay the starting time. Since this was the first half marathon for Lexington, you have to figure there would be glitches. So, we park and take off walking real fast. Went straight to the porta-potties and when we came out, we heard the gun go off for the race to begin! Again we book it over to where we saw a "Start" banner. All the runners were coming right at us!! We had to book it the other direction and find the end of the line!! Off we went!! It rained on us the entire way. And the wind blew.....and blew..... However, we kept on trotting along. About 4 miles into it, I went right through standing water, so not only were my shoes and socks wet, now they were soaked through and through!! Rick and I did pretty good until about mile 10. Then the fatigue really hit. We started doing some walk/running at that point. Then at about mile 11.5 or 12, my back seized up!! I had to walk for a while and there were 2 or 3 times from there to the finish that I wasn't even sure I would be able to continue on to the end!! But we ran some and walked some. I told Rick I would have to shoot myself if I got to 1/2 mile of the finish line and could not make it in!! But things calmed down and I was able to finish up running. WOOHOO!!! My time was 2:39:36. Not fabulous, but hey!....I finished!! I had hoped it would be a little bit better, but considering the conditions, it wasn't too bad. The wind the last 3 miles or so, was HORRIBLE!! Because I wasn't constantly running the last couple of miles, I started getting chilly willy. I was soaked through and through and the wind was blowing.......niiiiiice. Then afterwards, we stood around talking to friends, got a snack, stayed for the awards......so, I got even colder. When we finally got back to the car, I was an ice cube!! I didn't think I would ever get warm. When we got home, I was literally shaking all over. I got the wet clothes off and got under a blanket. Rick made me some hot chocolate. :-) It probably took an hour and a half for the cold to leave my body.
It was an experience! I'm glad I did it, but it really was tough. I asked Rick what he thought our time would be next year!! :-) I have to work hard and improve so I can do much better a year from now! That shouldn't be too tough......I don't have to improve a whole lot to get a better time.....this year was
pretty slow!!!
I'll take a couple of days to relax (I think my leg muscles are about to set-up as we speak!!), then it will be time to start training for the next one!! As I said before, I'm thinking heavily about doing the Hatfield-McCoy Half Marathon!! WOOHOO!!!
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