OK, I think I’m done downloading other people’s pictures from this weekend. On to the report!
Friday
I was pretty impressed with myself Friday. I told Kara I’d be at her house at noon, and I managed to scrub down the inside of my filthy car, pack the car, drive to Easton, get the outside of my filthy car cleaned, pick up medication for Pepper, drop it off at Mom’s office (and deflect a “You’ll ruin your knees!” comment from one of the doctors in her office) and be at Kara’s house on time. And she was ready to go too. Are we really related to the Schmidts?
The drive to Virginia Beach was easy. We went to the expo first to get our race packets. I also got one GU for the marathon, and Kara and I both bought a pair of throw away gloves for Sunday.
We drove to the hotel, a Days Inn on 11th Street. Jen and Angie, our roommates, were already there, so we unloaded the car and then walked down to the Abbey Road Pub for dinner.
I had to run in the morning, so I was trying to be good on the beer. I had a couple and was going to call it a night, but then other people started buying multiple pitchers of Yuengling, and those same other people kept making rounds of the table and topping off any empty glasses they saw, haha. It was just an easy 8K in the morning anyway. Fill ‘er up!
These were NOT all mine!
Runner’s World Loopsters, plus several runners from a West Virginia running club, at Abbey Road.
While we were there, Sass, who is both on the Loop and a member of the West Virginia running club, mentioned one of the other women in his running club was shooting for a 3:30 on Sunday, and her current marathon PR was within a minute of mine. At the expo that afternoon, I’d found out there was a 3:25 and a 3:35 pace group, but no 3:30. Running the race with her sounded perfect. He promised to get us in touch before the race.
It was around midnight when we left Abbey Road, after gifting another table with some of the leftover pitchers. I got to bed around 12:30 a.m.
Saturday
I was the only one in our room running the 8K. I got up at 6:30 a.m. to get dressed and eat some cold pancakes at the hotel breakfast before meeting Kraig and Vanessa and her family at 7 a.m. to walk to the start line, about 20 blocks from the hotel. I was still sleepy, but not hungover at least.
We didn’t actually leave the hotel until closer to 7:20 a.m. We still had to check our bags and get in the corrals for the 8 a.m. start. On the walk there, Mary Jane called me, and we ran into her around 23rd Street.
After dropping off our bags at gear check, we got a pre-race picture:
Vanessa, Kraig, Mary Jane and me before the 8K.
Mary Jane and I got in the first corral. It was a little chilly, but not bad, and the winds were light. They sang the National Anthem, fired the gun and sent us on our way.
We were aiming for a 42:00 finish, or about an 8:24/mile pace. Mary Jane usually runs with a Garmin, but had forgotten to put it on, and I’d decided not to run with mine at all this weekend, so we were just cruising along.
The first mile was a little slow because of the crowd, but then we got some room and fell into what felt like about our goal pace. The course ran right past our hotel, and we saw Jen on the sidewalk cheering for us.
Somewhere around mile 2.
The course looped around onto the boardwalk for about a mile and a half.
I think I remember some people on a hotel balcony cheering for us.
The course went back to Atlantic Avenue and through the start line arch (I didn’t see anyone sprinting under it after mistaking it for the finish line this time) and then we made one last turn, back onto the boardwalk for the final six blocks to the finish. We saw several of our friends on the sideline there who’d hauled their hungover butts out of bed to cheer for us.
I told Mary Jane to put up a Bangle pump for the finish photos:
We’re that good — almost completely synchronized, if I’d only dropped my arms a little lower.
We crossed the line in 41:40, a little under goal, and then saw Kraig. He’d started in the second corral, but nearly caught us right at the finish:
Kraig photobombing our Bangle pump with his own Bangle pump, haha.
First race of the weekend done! We got our checked stuff and headed to the beer tent. While we were in there, it started raining. I tried to stay there long enough for the rain to pass, but it was getting close to check out time at the hotel, so we gave up and started walking. It quit raining about halfway back.
The hotel staff was really riding our asses to be out by 11 a.m., so I took as quick a shower as I could, and then we headed out.
Kara and I met Jenny and her little boy, Sawyer, at The Baker’s Crust for lunch. Jenny had suggested it, understandably oblivious to the fact the restaurant had given Shamrock runners a coupon. The place was packed! We had to wait more than a half hour for a table. The food was worth the wait though. It was also really nice to spend some time with Jenny and Sawyer. We rarely see them.
After lunch, I drove part of the half marathon course to give Kara an idea of what she’d be running the next morning. We stopped at a grocery store to pick up some breakfast stuff for the next morning, and then drove to Sandbridge, where the group had rented a beach house.
The house was awesome! It was right on the ocean and had a huge common area, a covered porch and a deck. There was a pool and a hot tub on the ground level, but I don’t think anyone ever tried out either of those.
Several people who weren’t staying at the house came by that evening, and we all had a big pasta dinner. I was pretty exhausted after getting up and running that morning on not a lot of sleep the night before, so I laid out my race stuff and went to bed around 9 p.m. Before I fell asleep, Sass’s running group friend, Ashley, texted me, and we made plans to meet up in her hotel lobby before the race the next day.
Sunday
I had set my alarm for 5 a.m., but was woken up about 15 minutes before by Kara, who was highly concerned I wasn’t leaving myself enough time to get ready before leaving the house to get her to the half marathon start. Newbs, haha.
We all stepped outside around 5:30 a.m. into a much brisker morning than the day before. I told myself it only felt too cold and windy because we were right on the ocean, which helped, until I remembered the whole stupid race course was right on the ocean. Dammit!
I drove Mary Jane, who was also running the half, and Kara to within a few blocks of the half marathon start line, and then I drove in the other direction to find parking closer to the finish area. It was getting close to 7 a.m. by then, and I didn’t feel like walking 12 blocks in the cold wind to probably not even get to pick out Kara and Mary Jane in the massive starting crowd as it passed, so I just sat in the car for a while and called Clark.
When I got off the phone with him, it was about time to start walking if I was going to meet Ashley on time. I got to the hotel lobby, about six blocks from the start line, and found everyone else who was either running the full or spectating. I met Ashley, who confessed she was as nervous about trying to run 3:30 pace as I was, thank God.
We got to the gear bag truck with only a few minutes to spare before the start. I stripped off my sweats, stuffed them in the bag and handed it to a volunteer. I turned around to walk back to our corral, and faced the wind for the first time. Holy crap! It was blowing pretty hard, and it was so cold!
Ashley and I got in line between the 3:25 and 3:35 pacers. After another National Anthem, they fired another gun and we were under way.
I switched to chrono on my Timex as we jogged to cross the start line, only to find that once again, I’d forgotten to clear the time from the day before. I had to fiddle with it a few seconds after we’d crossed the start to get it started over. I do that all the time. You’d think I’d have learned by now.
Ashley had a Garmin though, and we were running just a little slower than goal pace for the first couple of miles, to warm up. The wind was at our backs for the first couple of miles, so it wasn’t too bad. After mile 2, we hit a short stretch into the wind before making another turn. I wasn’t looking forward to running a good chunk of the race into that wind later.
Ashley was pretty cool to run with. The first few miles, we chitchatted about dumb stuff, like races we’d run, races we wanted to run, her upcoming wedding, my thrown-together wedding, her cool job as a meteorologist for a TV station and my boring one writing for a newspaper.
Since I got to run with a meteorologist, I feel confident this map I made of the wind direction is accurate:
It was one of those annoying winds that changed direction with you as you ran, just so it could be in your face the whole time.
We were holding steady at our intended pace, so you can imagine our surprise when, just before mile 5, the 3:35 pace group went blowing by us like a freight train. It was tempting to catch up with them, but we held off. Another woman came running up behind the pace group and said it was running way too fast for 3:35, so we felt better.
Between miles 5 and 6, we hit a U-turn, which put the wind in our faces. I tried to forget about it by looking out for my friends heading to the turnaround. I saw Angie, then Vanessa and then Jen. They were all running near or ahead of the pace groups running their goal times.
We ran through Camp Pendleton and then back over the Rudee Inlet bridge. We made a turn and got a brief respite from the wind before making yet another turn and heading out to the boardwalk.
Ashley and me heading for the boardwalk.
The wind was coming right off the ocean and into our faces the entire length of the boardwalk. I can’t think of any other way to describe this section of the course, except that it sucked.
Before mile 12, we turned off the boardwalk and ran to the next street, running parallel to the boardwalk. Somehow, the wind seemed worse, like the buildings between us and the boardwalk weren’t blocking the wind, but rather creating a wind tunnel effect.
I started spotting half marathon finishers along the sidewalk, wearing what looked like mylar space blankets. What the hell? We always get cool finisher’s shirts instead of throw away space blankets, and I’d been counting on wearing that shirt under my sweatshirt when I finished. That pissed me off a little.
Then I spotted Kara and Mary Jane on the sidewalk, cheering for me as I ran by. That was a nice boost.
Soon, we were approaching halfway. I saw Sass cheering his face off for Ashley and me, and we tried to look happy for him. Brian, who had to skip the half because his calf started bothering him the week before the race, stepped on the course and ran a short stretch with me. He asked me how I was feeling. I was already in such a daze from fighting the wind I just kind of stared at him, haha. I finally formed an answer about how I couldn’t wait to get out of the wind or something.
We hit halfway in 1:47, a couple minutes off 3:30 pace but still in striking distance of 3:35 if we could just keep it up.
The next few miles were on a two-lane highway. The marathoners going out had one lane, and the back-of-the-pack half marathoners coming back had the other lane. Sure enough, the marathon leaders came through on this stretch. (I was at mile 15 as they passed mile 23.) The poor guys were weaving through walkers strolling along, three and four abreast. The leader at least had the benefit of the motorcycle, bicycle and car brigade announcing his arrival, but everyone behind him just had to deal with it.
At mile 16, we turned onto a road that had a nice tree line on one side, blocking the wind for the most part. I was starting to hurt here, but Ashley was trucking right along. I was doing everything I could to hang on to her.
Past 18, I had to let her go ahead. I just couldn’t keep it up any longer.
She wasn’t getting too far ahead, and since she was walking to drink water at every aid station, I caught up to her at the next two. Then she got too far ahead of me between aid stations, and I didn’t see her again until after the race.
It was also around here I started passing 3:35 pace group members who had blown up because of the super fast start. One of them had a pacer with her, who probably felt bad he’d ruined her race. I heard him ask her what her specialty had been when she ran in college. She said the 5K. He said, “You’ve only got two more of those to go!” which was a total lie, but I doubt it made her feel any better anyway.
I was really hurting by mile 22, mostly my calf muscles. That was normal.
But then I felt something give way inside my left shoe. It’d never happened before, but I knew exactly what it was — a freaking blood blister on the outside of the ball of the foot, where I always get them, had just popped.
It seriously felt like a razor blade had somehow worked its way into my shoe and dug itself into my foot. It burned so bad every time I landed on that foot and the shoe rubbed it.
For a few awful moments, I thought I was going to have to walk it in from there. But after a few more steps, the old familiar pain in my calf muscles had managed to overtake the one in my left shoe, and I was good to go again.
Somewhere around mile 23, on the way back to the boardwalk.
This last stretch is so damn hard. A lot of the spectators, who came out early for the half marathon, have left. Everyone around you is hurting. I had to stop and walk a little bit a couple of times, but for the most part, I was forcing myself to keep running. The faster you run, the sooner you’re done.
I walked one last time after mile 25. A passing woman reached out to me and said, “Come on, let’s run this in!” That got me going again.
Soon after, I felt like taking yet another walk break, even though I knew we were getting close to the turn to the boardwalk and the finish line. I was really fighting myself.
But then, up ahead, I saw Sass in the middle of the road again, jumping and cheering, and then I realized everyone else who had run the half or came out to spectate was lining the sidewalk, all cheering just for me! I gave Sass a little shrug, to say “Sorry I let your friend drop me,” but he didn’t seem to care, haha. I was way off my goal pace and feeling like I was on empty, but I just couldn’t help but smile.
That was the boost I needed. I ran the rest of the way to the finish line.
Coming down the boardwalk.
And crossed the line in 3:40:44!
Done!
No 3:30, no BQ, but dammit I had just run my fastest marathon ever in some less than stellar conditions. And there was a whole beer tent waiting for me!
I got my big honking finisher’s medal, and this year’s finisher’s hat. Then they handed me my “space blanket” — they were really nice fleece blankets! I should really get contacts or something. I can’t see shit, haha.
I hobbled down the food line, and then I heard my name — Ashley was sitting on a bench along the side of the finisher’s chute. She said she finished in 3:37, which was also a PR for her. We thanked each other again for the miles we were able to run together, and then I made my way to gear check. I found a tent to try to get out of the wind so I could put on my sweats. I pulled out my phone, and saw Clark had been tracking me online — he had sent me a message congratulating me on my new PR, and Kara on smoking his first half marathon time with a 2:00:55.
He also sent me this picture of Pepper, wearing his harness and my Garmin, with the note Pepper was ready to train me this summer for a fall BQ attempt:
Pepper doesn’t look that thrilled about it, but whatever.
I called Clark, and then it was time for the moment of truth — I had to see what was in that left shoe. This is what I found:
Eeeekkk!
I slapped a Band-Aid on that puppy, pulled on my shamrock compression socks and headed for the beer tent.
Once again, we shut the place down. The kegs were dry before we finally called it a day.
Me and Billy. The poor guy was signed up for the Whale Challenge when his foot rebelled, so he came to the race anyway and just stayed drunk the whole weekend. I don’t blame him!
Jen and me checking out something on her phone, race updates on Facebook no doubt. Mary Jane made Jen that 26-point-brew hat she’s wearing.
Back at the beach house, we made tacos for dinner and drank some more. The West Virginia running club came over again too. (Except Ashley; she’d recently started a new job and didn’t have vacation time, so she’d had to catch a 3 p.m. flight.) Lisa had a Mason jar full of moonshine with her. We all had a shot or three.
The whole group at the house Sunday night. Yes, I’m still wearing my race clothes. Yes, I wore them to bed, because I’m grungy like that.
Monday morning came pretty quickly. I hadn’t gotten much sleep when I got up and finally took a shower. Everyone was sitting around eating breakfast when Mary Jane took this morning after shot:
Looks like everyone else was feeling about the same as I was!
Kara and I were among the last to leave the house. We took Brian with us, to drop him off at the airport on our way out of Virginia Beach.
We were almost to the airport when I realized I’d left my wallet and phone in the bedroom floor back at the house, about a half hour behind us. Nice one. We dropped off Brian, and then I drove back to the beach house. Thankfully, Jen and Angie were staying an extra night, so they were still there.
With the car finally completely loaded, Kara and I got burgers from Five Guys for lunch, and then headed home.
They still haven’t released the Whale Challenge results, but here are my medals and bibs from both races this weekend. In a few weeks, I’ll get a little whale pin to put on one of the ribbons.
I haven’t run since Shamrock. I feel great though, so I probably will soon. I was going to do some strength training this morning, but it was cold in the attic so I stayed downstairs instead. I thought it was the first day of spring today. It sure didn’t feel like it this morning.
