I ate well the days leading up the race and for once had a great night of sleep (going to bed around 9 and sleeping until 415). I took a shower just to calm myself down and ate my pre-race breakfast of a bagel with peanut butter and string cheese. My friend Beth purchased VIP parking and picked me up at 515. We got to the race with no problems and started walking to the start of the race. That is when I noticed that my running watch had FROZEN! I quickly googled it and found out that to unfreeze it you have to plug it in. What the WHAT?!?!? I texted Cathy since she was the one who gave me the watch and she found the same info. But at about the same time I found out that if you hold both of buttons on the right for several seconds it will unfreeze! Thank goodness!!!! We then found out that due to an accident on 77S there was going to be a 15 minute delay...GREAT! We took pictures and wished each other good luck and I step into my pace group of 4.5 hours (a 10:17 pace). Apparently the National Anthem was played (I only heard the last line) and we were off with the temperature around 60 I think. The first few miles were a blur but I know that my pace was just under 10 for the first mile and hovered around 10:05-10:17 for the first 9 miles. I was feeling great, but I could feel the temperature rising. I LOVED seeing my friends at miles 4 and 8.
The best cowbell brigade ever!!!
By mile 10.5 I knew that my 10:17 pace wasn't going to be happening the whole race as the sun just beat down on us. I was taking water and gatorade at all the water stops and an extra water to dump on my head. I took my GUs at every 5 miles. I was doing everything perfect. I got to the half way part just over my original goal of 2:15 (I was around 2:20 at this point). I saw my friends and I think my friend Cathy asked how I was and I just shook my head "no" or maybe I just waved them in a way that she knew I was in trouble. She hopped in and tried with all these encouraging things and telling me how well I was doing. Asking me if I was drinking enough and if I had my taking the GUs, yes and yes. She MADE me try to do this walk for 2 minutes and walk a minute. I think I yelled bad things at her around this time and at mile 15 she said, "okay, I'll see you at mile 19, you're doing great!" After she left me I knew that I was never gonna make it. I don't know what road we had turned onto but I knew that there was NO shade! I tried for about a mile to keep up with my run 2 minutes and walk a minute but that was getting to be too much for me.SIDE NOTE: I may have hallucinated this, but at one of the last water stops I swear I saw a volunteer nursing her baby!!!
So at mile 16.5 I called Matt and told him I was done and started to cry. Matt told me that he was at mile 17 with the kids that they would start walking towards me but I had to keep walking myself. I cried lots of angry and frustrated tears the whole way to my family. I cried even harder seeing the signs they had made me.
LOL!!!!!
I walked with my head down back to the finish line and got a half marathon finisher medal and more water. The best part of a DNF is that I got to see my buddy Amanda cross the line, which was so funny. I was screaming at her and when she saw me, she had this look of why in the world are you here..she actually almost stopped. I had to yell at her to keep going and that I would explain when she crossed the finish line. I also got to see another buddy, Beth, cross the finish line which seriously was AWESOME! I know that I made the right decision to stop running, but it took lots of encouraging words from friends. My favorite one was that I had done all the hard work (the 18 week training schedule) and that the race was just the icing on the cake. That if the weather had be better that I would have been able to keep going and that I would have finished due to all my hard work. I also knew that I wasn't gonna let the stupid weather get the best of me. We all went out to lunch afterwards which is always fun. And Randy, who walked the half marathon with his 73 year old mom!, came and brought us donuts!!!
I started thinking about a fall marathon since I knew the weather wouldn't such a factor. I mean it could still be hot in October but I had decided that I was going to run the Towpath Marathon which is flat and mostly shady. By Monday though I had told myself why should I "waste" all my training and started to think about what if I ran Cleveland. I ran the half in 2013 and it was extremely hot that day too. But last years marathon it was like sleeting on everyone. So I kind of restarted thinking about Cleveland, it was $120 to sign up too and I just can't control the weather. Tuesday came around and I was still sort of going back and forth about Cleveland when I decided if I could find someone who wasn't going to use their bib if I could buy it off them for a discounted price then I would run, I mean it was like meant to be! This morning I saw a post on FB stating the person was injured and was unable to run anymore. I messaged her how much was she looking for her bib. Long story short I am running the Cleveland marathon for $70!!! So I am "back" in training mode, I ran 5 miles yesterday and 4 miles today. Tomorrow I will run 5 miles and on Sunday 12 miles. I can't believe this, all I ask now is that it's 50 degrees on May 21. Is that too much to ask? It really can't be 1000000 degrees twice can it?
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