Boulder Half Marathon

Source

First of all, this was all mom's fault... but I totally went along with it! Mom decided that she needed to sign up for the 10 mile course because she needed the motivation to up her mileage for the Horsetooth Half Marathon she's running in a few weeks. Since I'm not training for a half marathon, I went with the 5 mile course to use as training for the Bolder Boulder coming up in less than 2 months. Since I haven't increased my mileage yet, I thought that this would be a good test of where I'm at. I figured, I can run 3.1 miles. Lets see what happens after that. I thought I could just see how I would do after that point, and if I needed to walk some, then I would.

Mom's race started 15 minutes before mine, since all 3 races were the same out and back course with different turn around points. Mom took off at 8:15 and I killed some time by stretching and giving myself a peptalk. I was confident that this was going to go well for me. I didn't have big expectations on my time, because I was already allowing myself to plan for walking some of the last 2 miles, but my goal was to finish in an hour and 20 minutes tops - 15 minute miles (my slow 4 mph jog pace), plus an extra 5 minutes because I didn't know what to expect road wise on the course.

The gun went off at 8:30 for the 5 mile course. I started in the back of the pack, following my plan to take it easy. I was only a little nervous, and that was because I didn't want to push myself too hard and get hurt since I'd never done this distance before, and I haven't been running much over the last couple months. I got going, and my breathing was under control. My music was rocking. I was feeling like my muscles were warming up nicely by the time I hit half a mile... and then it was all down hill from there - and not in a good way. The course started going up hill at an angle, so my ankles started to hurt. It resulted in some funny looks from the other runners around me, but I turned around and started running backwards. My ankles stopped hurting and I turned back around, only to end up walking before much further. Why? I'm still not really sure. It was like all my energy just drained out of me all at once. I wasn't so tired and worn out feeling that I needed to turn back and quit. In fact, that never even crossed my mind. I did think to myself, though, "If I'm already walking, this is going to be a really long 5 miles..." So I walked for a short distance, and then started jogging again. And then I stopped. Again. and again. and again. I ended up jog-walk-jog-walking the whole thing. I was a little disappointed, but mostly I was concerned. I was so confident, and I really thought I was going to be able to tackle that run. How did I lose all my energy? Unfortunately, I'm worried that my health issues I've been battling so long are raging again. My hormones are whacked, and I think my body just couldn't handle the extra exertion right now. I've got a couple appointments set up with my doctors, so hopefully we can figure it out and get me put back together again.

The good news, though - I finished in 1:26, so only 6 minutes over goal. Not bad considering my body decided to protest almost right away. I'm still glad I went and did it (even walking is still good exercise), but I just wish it had gone a little better. I'll be healthy and ready for the Bolder Boulder, though.