Pat’s Run 4.2 Race Recap

If I never talk about it, then it’s like it never happened, right?

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Today was not a good day. Well, it’s only 1:44pm, so I will say that the first 8 hours of today have not been good. Remember yesterday’s craptastic run? Well today, I woke up feeling worse than when I woke up yesterday. Even though by yesterday afternoon I thought I felt better? Or maybe with how busy I was, I just didn’t notice that my body was still off? I’m not sure. But I woke up, my achilles were so sore that it hurt to flex my feet in bed, and used the bathroom 5 times in the 45 minutes before Nicole came to pick me up. Not a great start.

We got to the race and I was trying to meet up with Jason, and we had planned to meet up with several ladies from the AZ Bloggers Network, but we forgot Jason’s bib in the car, had to run back and were scrambling for time at the last minute. And when I say run back to the car, that’s literally what we did and I can tell you, it did not feel good. I felt nauseous and totally out of breath and I knew I was going to have a rough race, but I was determined to try to keep up with Nicole anyway. We barely found Jason, and scrambled to our corrals.

The National Anthem was played so beautifully, and as I stood there in a crowd filled with energy, I never really found any of my own. I wanted to run fast purely for the satisfaction of seeing a number on my garmin at the end of the race, but really emotionally and physically, I just felt tapped out. I tried to stick with Nicole and Julie as we went through the starting line, but I looked down at my Garmin as they were getting further away around a quarter of a mile in and it said 7:17. I waved Nicole ahead and tried my best to keep trucking along.

I finished mile 1 in 8:40 (my only decent mile in the entire race), grabbed water at the first water station, and within a minute, my stomach began to feel like someone was sticking a knife into it. I tried to keep going, but I felt absolutely miserable and shortly into mile 2, I stopped to walk and contemplating dropping out of the race all together. I have never thought about. Walking was less painful than running, so I told myself that worst case scenario, I could keep walking and still finish.

I kept trying to start running again, and it seemed like every time I picked up my pace, I got a sharp pain digging in my stomach and an urgent need to find the closest restroom, which of course there were none of along the course. Where are all the porta potties, huh Pat??? That was rude. I should be honoring him, not yelling at him about porta potties. Anyway, eventually after walking for what felt like forever, I was able to at least get back to a walk/run combo.

I spent a lot of the next 2 miles beating myself up, and trying to figure out ways to make up time. I was frustrated and not enjoying myself in the least, but I just wanted to finish so I could be done. Mile 2 was 10:41, and somehow with my walk/run combo, I managed to keep miles 3 and 4 just under 10 min. As soon as I saw the finish, I still wanted to finish strong. I mustered up everything I had left and sprinted like I don’t think I’ve ever sprinted before. My legs had a surprising amount still left in them (hey stomach, try as you might, you can’t bring my legs down!!) and at one point (probably for like a milisecond) hit a 5:10 pace according to Garmi!

I finished with an official time of 40:02. I was surrounded my swarms of people, I felt awful, I needed to get to a bathroom stat, I couldn’t see the way to get out and I was starting to panic. I struggled not to just start crying in the middle of the stadium. And did I mention that it was HOT?? Like in the 80s with a high today of over 100.

I finally made it out, and luckily Nicole spotted me really quickly. She rocked the race and finished in something ridiculous like 35 minutes!! But I’m a really awesome running friend and didn’t even asked. I just started crying about how I felt awful. I’m a real gem. You can fill out applications to be my friend, but be warned, there are so many of them because of my winning personality. I’m pickier than the moderators on Taste Spotting.

Everyone else I knew at the race today totally rocked it. Jason did it without taking a single walk break and much faster than we ran the distance just on Monday! Stacey kicked butt, and Emily even came over and said hi in the middle of her last mile! I’m so proud of my friends for their successful races!! And I know that things happen, and I will have better races.

Honestly, right now I’m running a fever and very clearly have something wrong that I’m guessing is the stomach flu, so I truly am proud that I made it through and finished. It doesn’t change that it’s frustrating, but I’m trying to stay positive. I tend to get overly emotional and sensetive when I’m sick, so it’s proving to be a challenge right now, but I’m sure I will wake up tomorrow with some renewed positivity. Or you all are going to have to slap some into me. Sound like a plan?

PLEASE TELL ME HAPPY THINGS!!!! Good race? Good things at work? Pictures of puppies being cute? You bought me my own fro yo machine and are having it delivered immediately?? I need some sunshine today!