Jax Marine Corps Half Marathon Recap

A few days later I finally have a moment to recap my most recent 13.1 mile trek.  I was completely mentally not prepared for this race at all.  My confidence was lacking since I had just gotten back from NW Pacific and hadn't run at all the week following my return.  I began hoping for rain or some other reason that the race couldn't go on so that I wouldn't have to feel like a failure for not going.  But I finally decided to go all in and change my mentality and prepare for this thing.

So I stocked up on music.  Made a kick ass playlist.  Got all my gear out including my Garmin, HR monitor, Gymboss, waistband, frozen water bottle (which I ended up forgetting), body glide and baseball cap.  The weather here in Jacksonville has been a little iffy lately.  One day it's chilly enough for a sweatshirt and then days like today I'm sweating walking to my car after work.  I had prepared shorts and a tank top the night before:

When I woke up I looked at the weather and saw that it was in the 60's and cloudy.  Thinking of the weather and the fact that I didn't love the way I looked in the chosen outfit I went for capris instead.  And it was a great decision - no chafing :) 

I'll save the boring details but will say I was able to meet up with my Galloway training group to run with them and it was AWESOME.  I LOVE my girls and we had fun running together.  

I felt GREAT (like amazing) when we started.  I thought I was going to have the best race of my life - my breathing was perfect, mentally I was feeling strong and confident, and my body felt good. Then we got to mile 7/8 and we were on the road and it was a pretty steep slant up to the middle of the road and it started a cramp in my right hip.  It got to the point where I seriously thought I needed to take it easy because this is it - the thing that will hold me back from being amazing today.  Just when I thought it was the end of my perfect race it kind of went away...  But then it came back around mile 10 in both hips.  Mentally and cardiovascularly I thought I could run a full; but my body was screaming for me to slow down.  I pulled my weight with the group all the way up to the last mile.  And they slowly started to creep ahead of me.  By the last 0.1 miles I had to walk and it felt like FOREVER.  I was pumping my arms so fast and I was moving so slowly.  I was in so much pain I wanted to cry and give up.  But I was doing so well I had to finish strong.  And I was able to run hobble my way through the finish line at 2:48.  

I'm actually pretty happy with my time.  When I completely hit a wall at the virtual half marathon a few weeks ago I had to walk quite a bit and finished in 3:02.  So I'm VERY happy with the outcome.  I'm even happier that I finished right behind the group.  

I took a few days off because I was so incredibly sore.  Tonight I got out and ran a 5k and hit a recent PR!  My ultimate PR was about 2 minutes faster during my college days so I'm excited that I'm getting closer and closer to that time!  36:34 is the new time to beat. 

Happy Hump Day!