Prairie Fire

Ok, so if you've been following my blog for some amount of time, you'll remember from back in September of '09 how I declared this race, my last half marathon.  Well, turns out, I'm a big fat liar.  I ran another half marathon this morning.  You see, I joined this running club called Moms in Motion, with the idea I'd have some fun women with whom I could run a few miles with on the weekend, the plan was that 5-6 miles was going to be my max mileage.  But it turns out, I'm more of a follower than I thought.  Everybody else was training for the Prairie Fire Half Marathon (some for the full marathon), but I wasn't signing up, I was just going to run some mileage with them each week.  Then one Saturday I showed up, having run only 6 miles the week before, and ended up running 11 with them - the conversation was good, my legs felt good, so I just kept running.  And after I ran that 11, I was like, I can totally do another 13.1!  My great friend and owner of Mommy Movement Fitness, Tonya, introduced me to my new best friend, the foam roll.  I rolled my legs out before and after every run and it totally helped my knees.  They were still a little tender after running, but nothing like before.  I was sure, this was my race to break my 2 hour goal.  I am the strongest I've ever been, I had been training with some great gals, one of which was going to run with me in the race, I was so sure I was gonna do it!

Then on Wednesday, I came down with some stomach bug and wasn't able to eat any food or hardly drink anything without an adverse reaction for 2 days.  Friday, I finally started feeling well enough to start eating some food and for the next 2 days I ate oatmeal, toast, crackers, and chicken noodle soup to try and re energize and rehydrate my poor body.  Saturday afternoon I was still pretty tired, my legs would burn every time I walked up stairs, and I was still pretty dehydrated, but I was pounding water like it was nobodies business. And then I got up this morning and headed to the race.

I felt pretty good the whole race, I was running with my friend Monica - which running with her was like running with my dad.  It seemed like every time we turned a corner, she was waving and saying hello to someone she knew.  "Hi!  Oh, hi!  Hi!"  Quite entertaining. :)  Then somewhere around 10.5 miles, I knew I was getting really dehydrated, despite the fact that I was taking as much gatorade and water at each station that I could, and it was becoming a struggle to keep my breakfast down.  I'm really glad Monica was with me, she just kept me moving forward, even though I couldn't keep up the pace we had been running, which was going to put us really close to the 2 hour mark.  I crossed the finish line at 2:04:49.  So close!  But still my best time ever, so I'll take that.  I guess I'll just have to run another one....maybe....

Almost to the finish line!



Monica and I



My friend Amanda and I - we rode to the race together.