Niki's Neverending Adventure

I did it!! I ran the St. Jude Half Marathon this morning and loved every minute of it! Even when I was tired and hurting!! I keep thinking to myself, I can’t believe I ran a half marathon this morning! All those weeks of training went into this one race and I did the very best I could and am so happy with that!

 

So let’s start from the beginning… I have been telling ya’ll for days how cold race morning was supposed to be. And boy was I right! The temp the car was reading when we got there was 23 degrees! Yikes!! My only saving grace was that their was NO WIND! Hallelujah!! I woke up at 5:15am, ate half a cliff bar, drank some water, and got ready. I decided to wear my long spandex running pants, a long sleeve compression shirt with a short sleeve t-shirt over it and a very light jacket (and of course gloves and ear muffs!!) We left the house at 6am. I was a little nervous about traffic downtown and parking but we were able to find parking without ANY trouble! Score #1!!

 

We sat in the car for a bit and got out around 7am to go find bathrooms and for me to be in my corral by 7:30am (the race started at 8am). Honestly, it was cold, but it wasn’t like freezing where I couldn’t handle it. I’m sure the excitement had something to do with it!! Plus, since my parents were there with me, I was able to wear a really heavy coat and hand it off to them right before I got into the corral. We walked up to the Fed Ex Forum so we could see the 5k start. Then we realized they actually had the Fed Ex Forum opened so we could get out of the cold and use ACTUAL bathrooms! No porta potties for me!! Score #2!!

 

So after “taking care of business” in the Forum bathrooms, we decided to do a little prerace photo shoot to kill some time.

 

 

Notice the Memphis Grizzlies picture in the background!!

 

 

This is right outside the Fed Ex Forum. I thought it would be fun to take a picture sitting on the basketball :)

 

So after this picture, I went and lined up in my corral. I chose corral 10, which was a 10:20-10:40 pace. I figured that would be a good place to start. Apparently there were 16,000 runners! That is so many people!! It was awesome to be surrounded by so many people who love to run!!

 

 

Here’s me and my dad going through my game plan and post race meeting up plan. He said this is his “coach’s face”! Haha.

 

 

Here I am in my corral. This is after I had to give up my heavy jacket to my mom. I was pretty cold at this point and my feet were starting to get numb!!

 

 

Starting to get a little crowded in my corral!!

 

 

This is the starting line right before the start!!

 

They also had a wave start, which means that they started every corral 2 minutes after the previous corral start. It took my corral about 16 minutes to get to the start!!

 

Miles 1-3:

Feeling great, except my toes are completely numb and my feet feel like ice blocks! Literally I couldn’t feel anything! I know I needed to start slow but of course I didn’t. Every mile I kept telling myself SLOW DOWN! And, I probably should have listened!!

 

Mile 1: 10:15 not bad considering I had no feeling in my feet and had a lot of weaving to do!!

 

Mile 2: 9:57 too fast, slow down!

 

Mile 3: 10:03 still too fast, slow down!

 

 

This is right at mile 3, check out my crazy hair!! I liked the first 3 miles. We got to run along the Mississippi River and there was TONS of crowd support! Plus I was feeling really good at this point!

 

Mile 4-8

My favorite mile was mile 5, when we ran through the St. Jude campus. There were pts and family member standing out there cheering us on! It’s just so neat to see the people you are running for!! I stopped and got a sip of water at the 4 mile water station and then didn’t again until Mile 7. After that though, I was super, super thirsty and stopped and got water at EVERY water station!! I started getting one of my infamous side stitches around mile 7. It didn’t get me down too much because honestly I was expecting it since it happened on every long run!! It kinda stuck with me on and off from here on.

 

Mile 4: 10:17

Mile 5: 7: 12 This is when my Garmin got a little crazy and didn’t count a full mile (ya’ll know I can’t run a 7 minute mile! Haha) From this point on, Garmie was ).32 off. Not a problem once I figured it out!

 

Mile 6: 10:30

Mile 7: 10:26

Mile 8: 10:39

 

Miles 9- 13.1

After mile 8 I started getting tired and my pace slowed a bit. This is when I wished I would have started a little slower. This is also when the crowd support dwindled. But luckily it picked back up around mile 11. The were handing out GU at mile 9 and I grabbed one but didn’t end up taking it. Didn’t want to mess with my side stitch!

 

Mile 9: 10:43

Mile 10: 11:44 TIRED

Mile 11: 10:39

Mile 12: 11:20

Mile 13: 10:48

Mile 13.5 (that’s what it ended up being on the Garmin) 9:43

 

LOVED the finish!! We ran in to AutoZone Park, which is the Redbirds Stadium and finished along the baseball field! Such a dramatic end!! My time was 2:19:35!!! Wohoo! I am sooo happy with that time! Garmie says that’s a 10:19/mile pace!!

 

 

This is the finish line!! I was so happy to be finished and felt so accomplished! I actually ran into an old co-worker who was running the half at about the 12.5 mile mark and we ran the last 0.6 together! It was awesome!! I easily met up with my parents and we headed to Panera!! That’s what I was craving! I got a whole grain bagel with honey walnut cream cheese and chicken noodle soup because I was freezing after the race!! I ate it too fast to take a picture! Haha!!

 

So overall, this race was fantastic! I was afraid it was going to be chaotic with THAT many runners but it was SOOO organized! I am super impressed!! I am so happy with myself and my time! And I can’t wait to do another one (more on that in another post!).

 

 

 

Ideas for my next round of training:

 

1. Figure out the stupid side stitches

2. Work on fueling during the run

 

Thanks for making it this far in my recap, it ended up being so long! But, like I said, I will be back soon with future race plans! Now I must go get ready for a school function that involves me wearing a cocktail dress and heels. Boy, my legs are going to love me tonight!

Posted in: on Saturday, December 5, 2009 at at 5:17 PM