Attempted Runner.

Brazen Racing: Bad Bass 5k/10k/Half Marathon trail runs.

Two words: RACE DAY!!

Let’s recap to the night before, so you get the full effect of the day. If you don’t care about last night, just skip everything and read from 7:15am.

After a long, pointless Friday at work I get home and was deciding what to make for dinner when A suggested we go out to BJ’s Brewhouse because he has a new liking for their BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwiches. I didn’t veto the idea, only because I didn’t have to cook dinner and their Santa Fe Salad is really good. We have a nice dinner and when I got home I got my things together for Race Day and went to bed early. I haven’t been sleeping well all week, so I knew it was important to try to get a good nights sleep before the race. In bed by 8pm, asleep by 8:30pm. On a Friday. I’m hardcore.

At 9pm, my phone begins ringing. Everyone knows to not call me that late, so I knew it had to be something important. Without going into much detail, because my sister will read this and get upset again……it was J calling and practically in tears because one of her neighbors dogs attacked/killed one of the outdoor cats. I told her do try to get some rest and although upsetting, the cat is now in a better place because he was deathly ill. Anyway, over the next hour, texts where being sent back and forth from J and me.

10:30pm, I get to sleep again. Jesse James decides he has to go outside at 11pm. I get up and let him out, wait around and then let him back in…Went back to sleep.  12:30am Jesse decides he has to pee again. Seriously?! I get up, with a little more huffs and puffs and let him out. I try to bribe him with snappeas/carrots to come back inside so I didn’t have to wait any longer. Around 1:30-2:00am, Jesse is beginning to write his death with because he wants to go outside for the 8490348598340958 time. Apparently, this was the time he decides to has bladder problems. He needs to learn how to sleep like Milo. A rock all night long. I was getting frustrated and angry and developing a migraine. Kill me now….not on race day! I tried to go back to sleep but my head was killing me and making me nauseous, so I got up and got some Advil, opened the window for fresh air and put an icepack on my head. I think I laid there until 2:30-3:00am before falling asleep.

Side note: I really think Jesse wasn’t feeling well. Maybe he had too many snap peas and carrots throughout the evening.

4:00am, I wake up because I thought I slept through my alarm, but I didn’t. I fall back asleep, then wake up again at 4:30 with the same feeling. Since my alarm was going to go off at 4:45am anyway, I just laid their for 15 more minutes. So much for sleep, right? I got up and took a shower. Luckily, my migraine was now gone, but I did still feel a little queasy. Needless to say, my shower consisted of me sitting in the bathtub rather than standing because I was tired, lazy and because the up/down motions, even slightly, when trying to lather up or shave the legs where not helping me any.

I got dressed, slowly. Fed the boys, double checked to make sure I had everything, made breakfast (It was easy….Pancakes!), forced myself to eat said breakfast, then left my house at 6:15.

I yawned the entire way down to my sisters and continued to yawn the entire time at her house waiting for TR to show up. We ended up leaving J’s around 7am to head over to the Lake.

(If you skipped the above section, here is where you can start reading from).

7:15am: We parked, went and grabbed our bibs/t-shirts/goodie bags (since we didn’t take advantage of early bib pickup), then went back to the car to get our gear on (hydration packs, IPod holders, bibs, etc).

While walking to the race area, a bag piper was tuning his pipes. Due to ordnances, the Lake doesn’t allow amplified sounds, but they do allow for real live musicians blowing some Bagpipes.

You can listen to the bagpiper and the little drummer girl play on my instagram page (http://instagram.com/p/cRiYWytwVQ/)

At the starting area we hung out for a bit while the race distances took off. There was the Canadian Racers.

Canadian Runners.

Followed by the the Half Marathon Early start hiker division,  the regular Half marathon, the 10k and then that’s when I got nervous. It was my turn. The 5k’ers. I acted all cool, calm and collected, but I was really nervous because like I’ve mentioned numerous of times, I really wanted to do well and hit my goal of under 40 minutes.

Pre-Race photo

Sam (one of the Race Directors) announces that we had 5 minutes till start. I turn Garfield (Garmin) on to start searching for GPS, did a few more stretches.

Three minutes till show time. I turn my iPod on and select the playlist.

Two minutes, I have to pee.

One minute, start walking closer to the start.

READY!!

SET!!

GO!!!

The same time I cross the starting line, I also clicked “Start” on my Garfield.  I round the first turn and take the outside right. I mean, that is etiquette. We pass Turtle Creek or whatever its called and the trail starts to go slightly uphill. I run on. I reach .25 miles and keep going. Around .80, I was getting a little winded, but I didn’t stop.

I reach mile 1 at 11:21 and I decided to keep going. I continued to jog until roughly 1.20 miles then started walking. I drank some water and told myself I would only walk for 1/10th of a mile. Of course, at 1.30 miles, when I was to run again it was the steeper hill. I was determined, and ran it on my toes. I shocked myself and continued to run until the turn around at 1.75 miles. I walked while I had some water/PowerAde and when I reached 1.85 I began running again.

Two miles – 24 minutes. I started doing the math in my head and I had roughly 16 minutes to finish the last 1.35 miles (remember, this was a 3.35 mile “5K.”) and just thought that if I could maintain the 12:30 pace time I would be able to do it. At 2 1/2 miles, I was still on pace but beginning to get tired. To make things worse, my iPod died so I had nothing to help distract me from the race itself.  I slowed down a bit, walked very briefly (I think .05 miles this time) and started jogging again. I rounded the second to last turn, and saw that I only had 2 minutes left to be UNDER 40 minutes. I ran faster! I’m running quickly, but wanting to stop all at the same time. In my head, I’m counting down the seconds. Crossed the bridge, 20 seconds, hit the pavement, 10 seconds, hit the grass and pushed hard! I stopped counting.

As I crossed the finish line I simultaneously and stopped Garfield. I looked at my results:

39:52.

Not only did I FINALLY beat my under 40 minute goal, but I beat it on a:

• Trail run.
• Hilly run.
• extended 5k – 3.35 miles.

Do the math or review my Garmin stats and I had my fastest 5k (the actual 3.1 miles) at 37:49. I grab my medal from the Little’s who are helping out and walk over to J, since she finished about 3-4 minutes before I did. I bend over to catch my breath and blurted out my only comment of a nice, “Holy fuck.” She laughed and I showed her my stats. I caught my breath, drank some more water, got some snacks (Bananas/pineapple/gummy bears/Ruffle chips – Only a few of each, and yes…I did account for all calories). I go back over to J and give her, her snacks while we waited for TR to finish.

Once TR came in, we did the necessary post race celebrations of high fives, great jobs, visiting the food table again since TR didn’t get anything yet and take finisher photos, all while waiting for the results to be posted. Because Garfield said 39:52, my sisters iPod had a good time, and TR did her second official race, we all decided to get our finishers medals engraved. I mean, I did FINALLY reach my goal! Why not get it engraved?

Post Race photo with dribble stains on my shirt.

After ditching the hydration packs, got cash and my sweatshirt we went back over to check the official results that were now posted.

TR: 54:13

J: 37:00

Me: 40:15

WHAT?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!??!!

All excitement and over joyousness was totally deflated. I checked Garfield again because how can I have a finish time of 40:15, when Garfield was started and stopped the exact moments I crossed the lines and was reading 39:52????? There was no way I was 23 seconds off when starting/stopping my watch! OMG!

I no longer wanted my medal engraved. I didn’t reach my goal. I was not under 40 minutes for a 5k. Yes, I know….it was 3.35, so really an official 5k of3.1, I would have been under 40. But in my head…its not true. Even though it was 3.35, the title/medals/shirts/results/etc, all said 5k. So 3.1 or 3.35 it was still 5k to me and I did not do a 5k under 40 minutes.

J and TR still get theirs engraved, but now we had to wait an hour since everyone else was getting them engraved too. Everyone had great accomplishments that they wanted to remember. Everyone but me. We went and hung out by the docks. I was checking all my previous race results trying to find any positives in my 40:15 time.

What I found was:

• I set a Lake Chabot trial PR.
• I set a trail run PR.

My fastest 5k, to date was 40:14!! I was still 1 second slower than my fastest. I was getting more upset and just couldn’t figure out how this happened. I asked J if it was the first mat or second mat that recorded the time, because I crossed the first mat, then walked to the second. I thought my Garmin lost signal and that’s why its off…but then I realized I was an idiot, because even if I lose signal…it doesn’t stop the timing.

I thought of everything and just had to accept the fact that I was still at 40 minutes.

We had a fiasco of a missing ATM, that was really hiding in the trunk of my car the entire time, laughed about it then went to lunch (Chiptole, because Duh..), Afterwards, I dropped everyone off and drove home. Once I got home, I looked at the results again. Uploaded pictures and didn’t want to blog about it. I was upset.

I got out of my race clothes (although they were all comfy as hell, new Nike Dri Fit Sports Bra, UA pants, ProCompression Trainers, UA Victory Tank, C9 runderwears, NB shoes, iFitness hydration belt, KP iPod arm band, Ralph Lauren sunglass [HA!]…these are memories I might want to remember one day) and jumped in the shower for the second time today.

I am a genius when I am in the shower and all my brilliant ideas come to me there.

Recalling the images in my head the race results…they were as follows in the two important categories:

Gun Time: 40:15

Chip Time: 40:15.

EPIPHANY!

I wasn’t at the starting line when the gun when off. I was roughly 15-20 seconds back. I immediately jump out the shower and double-check the results for the millionth time and I was right…..everyone on the 5k had the same chip/gun times. Unless that is a mile wide starting line, its impossible for 354 people to all start at the same exact time. I saw the Facebook post from the race director announcing the results were posted and if there are any discrepancies, email him. I sent Sam the email asking about chip/gun time and how my official results were 40:15, but my Garmin was 39:52 and explained how although the time difference to some didn’t mean much, to me they meant everything. I mentioned how I busted my butt trying to FINALLY break 40. Within the hour Sam responded back to my email and wrote:

Hi,

I just noticed that myself and fixed it. We have you at 39:50, so you just gained two more seconds!!!

-Sam

I KNEW IT!!! BEING OBSESSIVE ABOUT TIMES AND MILEAGE AND WHATEVER YOU WANT TO CALL IT TOTALLY PAID OFF!!! I FINALLY BROKE INTO THE 30s!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AND ITS OFFICIALLY LISTED ON A RACE EVENTS RESULT PAGE!!!

Oh yea…my training helped too.

Of course, after that I couldn’t WAIT to blog about my adventure today because I ACCOMPLISHED MY GOAL!!! I texted J and told her Sorry that her engraved medal was wrong now, but it wasn’t as important as me breaking into the 30s.

Ahh! Sweet relief. Yes, after I got my official time of 39:50! I started doing math calculations and if I run my next race (Saturday 8/3) the same way that I did today minus the hills, but add a 10k….I could just possible set a new 10K PR TOO!!! Right now I am on top of the world about that….but just you wait….Thursday/Friday, I’ll start to get nervous all over again.

:::holds up water bottle:::

A toast…to:

• A Trail run PR.
• A Lake Chabot Course PR.
• A Fastest 5k PR (an actual 5k per Garfield and overall 5k “classificaiton” even though it was 3.35 miles).
• REACHING MY GOAL!

HERES THE THAT!!!!

CHEERS!