Post-race reflections

If you've been following along this summer, you know I ran the Zooma Cape Cod Half Marathon this weekend.  It was a beautiful course, and very well run race. Don't tell the folks at Disney, but I think I actually liked Zooma better!  Less pagentry, more camaraderie. 

Anyway, I PR'd by 1.5 minutes at Zooma.  On hills. Almost 800 feet of elevation. I was flying high at the end of the race.  Crying and yelling when I crossed the finish line. 

Then, Sunday, we had a bit of excitement at home and I barely noticed the day (quick summary: It's all good now, Hubby got dehydrated, and passed out.  7 year old called 911 for me, Hubby ended up in the ER, discharged 6 hours later and has been fine since. Side note: I ran 13.1 miles and peed within an hour of finishing. Hubby had a gigantic buffet breakfast and ends up on IV fluids. Just saying.) But Monday? Monday hit me hard!

Monday, I couldn't walk up or down stairs without grimacing.  I was told to take the elevator several times.  I replied with "I ran 13 miles, I am not taking an elevator" and continued to hobble.  I fell into chairs instead of sitting.  I wore flip flops with work clothes because my weird toe nail hurt. I had slammed the toe into a curb a few years back and the nail now grows up instead of out. Apparently, it was too long during the race and got banged up. It's now a pretty pale purple color and achy. 

Tuesday, got better.  I could almost sit and stand easily. Stairs slowed me down, but weren't painful. Toe got some more color to it, and a bit throbby, but I could wear shoes.

All of the aches and pains got me thinking: during the training runs, I was fine.  No long recovery times, no toe issues.  But, then again, it took me 2:40 to run 12 miles during training.  What was different about the race? 

I ran faster.  That's it.  I checked the elevation, my 12 mile run was 787 ft, the Zooma Half was 797 ft.  Let's call that even (and I was worried about the elevation change! I probably should have check my long run elevation before the race, not afterwards!).  The only different was I kept my pace and walked less. I also set a more realistic pace than in training (10:20-12:30 min/mile vs 8:50-10:20 min/mile), which made it easier to keep.

Going into the race, I wasn't even thinking PR. Heck, I was hoping for 10 minutes over my first half.  At one point, I was running with Michelle, and found she was aiming for sub 2:30.  I ran with her for most of the race.  She finished stronger than I did, and got her goal and PR.  I was right there with her, till mile 10.

Up until mile 10, I was on target for a 2:30 finish.

Right now, I'm afraid to actually aim for a 2:30 goal.  But maybe that's just the busted toe nail talking.