All I need is a track in the background (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} mizmizuno) wrote,@ 2003-01-04 20:20:00 |
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For Scott, again
Had I not experienced this race myself, I would have been in complete disbelief that we all ran as well, as strong, and as fast as we did.
The weather and my nerves were much more forgiving overnight, so instead of just two hours sleep, I got seven. I probably should have eaten more throughout the day and morning. I did eat frequently, just not in great amounts. Breakfast was a nutrigrain bar at 4:45AM. About 15 minutes before the race, I was hungry.
My only major mistake this morning was that I forgot to BodyGlide my feet. I made a portapotty visit while there were three people in line, did a one mile warm-up (first time to warm up before a race), and then went back to the portapotty line which had now grown to about 3000 people. The weather was absolutely perfect. There was a cool breeze and it promised to be a very clear sunny day. In fact, it had warmed up enough by 7:20 that I ditched my gloves and got pretty close to ditching my jacket as well.
The first mile was slooooooow, partially due to one big long uphill that lasted at least two miles. Once we started our first downhill, we picked up the pace. I was running with my marathon training buddies, Jenn, Jennifer and Amanda. Two of them had watches, eventually I'll have our split times.
There were very, very few people cheering us on, even when we looped around back past the starting area. Those who were out there were all angels in my book! The new course only had us run by the heavy traffic on 290 once, which was a good improvement.
As we started down Old Bee Caves Road, my mind zipped back a year. This is the road Scott died on. This is where the ambulance passed me up. Not meaning to abandon my buddies, I was far away mentally and separated myself physically as I started picking up the pace. I'm running this for Scott. I wondered if they would put flowers at the place where he passed away. Sure enough, there were poems on posted signs. I slowed to read every line. A picture of him. Lots of flowers. As I picked up a Gatorade at the water stop (which I believe was run by his family and friends), my eyes were full of tears and sadness that he wasn't physically there with us in this race. He was definitely there in spirit.
We did a short jog off the main road through a trashy area. (literally) At this point, my only pain was feeling the seam in my sock rubbing against my right little toe. I recalled the pain in my big toe from the two previous days and thanked it for behaving (throughout the entire race!) At eight miles, we cheered for being over halfway done, and several runners around us joined in the celebration. We began closing the gap on a runner who was wearing a familiar looking hat. As we passed him up, I complimented him on his nice Mizuno hat and nice Mizuno shoes. He was just as friendly in return.
We climbed the hills and shouted words of encouragement to each other. We continued to be amazed at our mile splits mile after mile after mile. We turned onto 290 and ran downhill and up an incredibly big hill. The previous ClifShot/Gu stop was perfectly timed because our energy was there right when we needed it for the hill. There was much yelling up this hill. As I passed up two runners, one commented to the other that she wanted a ride. Our split time for this mile was incredible.
Being well over halfway through and still feeling great, I knew that barring disaster, I'd beat my old time by a ton. "For this race I'm going to PR!" Amanda didn't have the best hearing this morning and she thought I said "After the race I'm going to pee hard." Thankfully that was not the case, but it didn't stop us from joking about it.
We took a lovely downhill and finally turned onto Southwest Parkway, up yet another hill. The sun was in our faces and I saw a lone supporter in front of his motorcycle cheering us on. I raised my arm up, responding with a "yeah!!" Then I recognized him... Coach Barry!! I gave him a hug and pointed him out to the other ladies in my group. They knew him from shopping at RunTex Gateway.
For this stretch, Jenn, Jennifer and even Amanda would occasionally get a little bit ahead of me. In my mind I could see myself getting farther behind as the miles wore on. Up more hills. At times I'd be right at their shadows and then the shadows would jump up and take off in front of me. More, more and more hills. I caught up with them at the next water stop. It seemed unbelievable that we had kept our pace up this far into the race.
On our left, I noticed quite a few cyclists, some packed together in a group. I think it was the Austin Tri-Cyclist riders! How inspirational.
I believe this race had a water stop every two miles and every other one had Gatorade. If you timed it right, you could GU or Gatorade at every stop. I must have gotten my GU's off by two miles because halfway through the race every time I wanted Gatorade, it was a water-only stop. We GU-GU girls were on a gel high nearly the whole race. Jenn even took two at one point. My theory is that it's far better to be high on GU than run low on energy during the race.
The last two hills felt the worst. I cheered on my team and the other runners as much as I could, forsaking precious oxygen intake.
"We can do it!"
"Go legs go!"
"You guys rock!"
"I love hills!"
"I love running!"
"I can smell the pizza from here!"
"There's no better way to spend a Saturday morning!" (There were disagreements on this one.)
"Where's the freaking finish line?!"
When I did fall behind my training partners (I think in actuality they were just speeding up), they would pull me ahead with a "Come on Julia!" or a "This is a PR!!" Those magical two letters somehow got me running just a bit faster.
As we finally, finally turned off Southwest Parkway, we knew it was all downhill from there. Just a mile and a half left! Unfortunately the downhill leveled off too soon, and there was again a greater distance between the four of us. Every half mile was marked: mile 14, one mile left and mile 15. With the entire race at a fast pace, this time I did not have the typical "oh cool, I see the finish line and I still have energy left!" feeling. So no sprints to the finish. I pulled up my jacket so Evil could see
my number and call out my name. Then it was all cheers and smiles as I turned the bend and finished! I knew it would be a good race time. I was ecstatic when I saw the clock read "2:30"! We were so thrilled with our times and our success and finishing one right after the other that we gathered together in a group hug. What a team! All of us ended up PRing, since I was the only one who'd had the experience of a 25K race before... even more impressive!
We earned nice medals and headed over for some Mangia pizza! It was great to see more runner and triathlete friends at the finish line. Lots of hugs, congratulating and smiles. Talk about a runners high! My massage therapist, Steve was giving massages for the Body Therapy Center and I stopped to chat with him a little. Another inspiration for working hard in the race was knowing I was scheduled for a massage later. Physically, I felt good. My quads were a touch upset, but they held up well. I went to my car to get some Endurox and two guys sitting in the back of their pickup truck behind me said hello. (I think one was the Mizuno hat guy I'd passed up.) I grabbed my bottle, put on my warmup pants and introduced myself to Don and Josh. They told me my post-race condition looked far too healthy and that I should at least limp while I walked over or something. So then I pointed out that my little toe did hurt. (I ended up with a mega blister.) They shared thoughts
of cold beer and a huge cooler full of icy water. (to sit in. ...and pee in? what?!?) They highly recommended the coach and class for the Wednesday RunTex U training of 7-8 miles.
I got in my car quite pleased that I didn't have a flat tire this year. I drove home not just on any old runner's high, but a runner's PR high!
Even though I ran 30 minutes faster, I still placed the same as last year! This year had nearly 1,000 runners and all the new runners were fast.
Split times
2002 Race Report
Had I not experienced this race myself, I would have been in complete disbelief that we all ran as well, as strong, and as fast as we did.
The weather and my nerves were much more forgiving overnight, so instead of just two hours sleep, I got seven. I probably should have eaten more throughout the day and morning. I did eat frequently, just not in great amounts. Breakfast was a nutrigrain bar at 4:45AM. About 15 minutes before the race, I was hungry.
My only major mistake this morning was that I forgot to BodyGlide my feet. I made a portapotty visit while there were three people in line, did a one mile warm-up (first time to warm up before a race), and then went back to the portapotty line which had now grown to about 3000 people. The weather was absolutely perfect. There was a cool breeze and it promised to be a very clear sunny day. In fact, it had warmed up enough by 7:20 that I ditched my gloves and got pretty close to ditching my jacket as well.
The first mile was slooooooow, partially due to one big long uphill that lasted at least two miles. Once we started our first downhill, we picked up the pace. I was running with my marathon training buddies, Jenn, Jennifer and Amanda. Two of them had watches, eventually I'll have our split times.
There were very, very few people cheering us on, even when we looped around back past the starting area. Those who were out there were all angels in my book! The new course only had us run by the heavy traffic on 290 once, which was a good improvement.
As we started down Old Bee Caves Road, my mind zipped back a year. This is the road Scott died on. This is where the ambulance passed me up. Not meaning to abandon my buddies, I was far away mentally and separated myself physically as I started picking up the pace. I'm running this for Scott. I wondered if they would put flowers at the place where he passed away. Sure enough, there were poems on posted signs. I slowed to read every line. A picture of him. Lots of flowers. As I picked up a Gatorade at the water stop (which I believe was run by his family and friends), my eyes were full of tears and sadness that he wasn't physically there with us in this race. He was definitely there in spirit.
We did a short jog off the main road through a trashy area. (literally) At this point, my only pain was feeling the seam in my sock rubbing against my right little toe. I recalled the pain in my big toe from the two previous days and thanked it for behaving (throughout the entire race!) At eight miles, we cheered for being over halfway done, and several runners around us joined in the celebration. We began closing the gap on a runner who was wearing a familiar looking hat. As we passed him up, I complimented him on his nice Mizuno hat and nice Mizuno shoes. He was just as friendly in return.
We climbed the hills and shouted words of encouragement to each other. We continued to be amazed at our mile splits mile after mile after mile. We turned onto 290 and ran downhill and up an incredibly big hill. The previous ClifShot/Gu stop was perfectly timed because our energy was there right when we needed it for the hill. There was much yelling up this hill. As I passed up two runners, one commented to the other that she wanted a ride. Our split time for this mile was incredible.
Being well over halfway through and still feeling great, I knew that barring disaster, I'd beat my old time by a ton. "For this race I'm going to PR!" Amanda didn't have the best hearing this morning and she thought I said "After the race I'm going to pee hard." Thankfully that was not the case, but it didn't stop us from joking about it.
We took a lovely downhill and finally turned onto Southwest Parkway, up yet another hill. The sun was in our faces and I saw a lone supporter in front of his motorcycle cheering us on. I raised my arm up, responding with a "yeah!!" Then I recognized him... Coach Barry!! I gave him a hug and pointed him out to the other ladies in my group. They knew him from shopping at RunTex Gateway.
For this stretch, Jenn, Jennifer and even Amanda would occasionally get a little bit ahead of me. In my mind I could see myself getting farther behind as the miles wore on. Up more hills. At times I'd be right at their shadows and then the shadows would jump up and take off in front of me. More, more and more hills. I caught up with them at the next water stop. It seemed unbelievable that we had kept our pace up this far into the race.
On our left, I noticed quite a few cyclists, some packed together in a group. I think it was the Austin Tri-Cyclist riders! How inspirational.
I believe this race had a water stop every two miles and every other one had Gatorade. If you timed it right, you could GU or Gatorade at every stop. I must have gotten my GU's off by two miles because halfway through the race every time I wanted Gatorade, it was a water-only stop. We GU-GU girls were on a gel high nearly the whole race. Jenn even took two at one point. My theory is that it's far better to be high on GU than run low on energy during the race.
The last two hills felt the worst. I cheered on my team and the other runners as much as I could, forsaking precious oxygen intake.
"We can do it!"
"Go legs go!"
"You guys rock!"
"I love running!"
"I can smell the pizza from here!"
"There's no better way to spend a Saturday morning!" (There were disagreements on this one.)
"Where's the freaking finish line?!"
When I did fall behind my training partners (I think in actuality they were just speeding up), they would pull me ahead with a "Come on Julia!" or a "This is a PR!!" Those magical two letters somehow got me running just a bit faster.
As we finally, finally turned off Southwest Parkway, we knew it was all downhill from there. Just a mile and a half left! Unfortunately the downhill leveled off too soon, and there was again a greater distance between the four of us. Every half mile was marked: mile 14, one mile left and mile 15. With the entire race at a fast pace, this time I did not have the typical "oh cool, I see the finish line and I still have energy left!" feeling. So no sprints to the finish. I pulled up my jacket so Evil could see
my number and call out my name. Then it was all cheers and smiles as I turned the bend and finished! I knew it would be a good race time. I was ecstatic when I saw the clock read "2:30"! We were so thrilled with our times and our success and finishing one right after the other that we gathered together in a group hug. What a team! All of us ended up PRing, since I was the only one who'd had the experience of a 25K race before... even more impressive!
We earned nice medals and headed over for some Mangia pizza! It was great to see more runner and triathlete friends at the finish line. Lots of hugs, congratulating and smiles. Talk about a runners high! My massage therapist, Steve was giving massages for the Body Therapy Center and I stopped to chat with him a little. Another inspiration for working hard in the race was knowing I was scheduled for a massage later. Physically, I felt good. My quads were a touch upset, but they held up well. I went to my car to get some Endurox and two guys sitting in the back of their pickup truck behind me said hello. (I think one was the Mizuno hat guy I'd passed up.) I grabbed my bottle, put on my warmup pants and introduced myself to Don and Josh. They told me my post-race condition looked far too healthy and that I should at least limp while I walked over or something. So then I pointed out that my little toe did hurt. (I ended up with a mega blister.) They shared thoughts
of cold beer and a huge cooler full of icy water. (to sit in. ...and pee in? what?!?) They highly recommended the coach and class for the Wednesday RunTex U training of 7-8 miles.
I got in my car quite pleased that I didn't have a flat tire this year. I drove home not just on any old runner's high, but a runner's PR high!
Even though I ran 30 minutes faster, I still placed the same as last year! This year had nearly 1,000 runners and all the new runners were fast.
Overall Place Chip Time Gun Time Difference Pace 622 Julia Weatherby Austin TX 25 3:01:04.35 3:01:59.60 00:55.25 11:41/M 623 Julia Weatherby Austin TX 26 2:31:14.70 2:32:08.05 00:53.35 9:45/M
Split times
2002 Race Report
