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race report: get in gear half marathon


For those of you that live in Minnesota, you know what awful race weather we had yesterday. Cold. Wind. Rain. I'll say right off the bat that this was one of the most mentally taxing races for me but I wasn't running this for myself. I was running it for Ann.

I woke up around six before my alarm even went off and met Ann in the kitchen for a cup of coffee to get things moving. (If you were on twitter, you likely saw all the pre-race poop talk.) During breakfast I was trying to decide on what to wear during the race. It wasn't raining yet and I thought that I might be able to survive in just shorts and a long sleeve.  As I was about to walk out of the bedroom, I thought about being rained on, how long we would be out there and how bad it would hurt to chafe. Shorts off, capris on. Best decision ever.

We got to the race and parked about a half-mile away. At this point it had started to rain and as we walked across the Ford Bridge, I swear I saw snowflakes. I repeatedly cursed myself for not bringing a throw-away shirt and pants or at least a trash bag. Rookie mistake.

In the days before the race, Ann and I had talked about going out at a 13:30 pace, evaluating how she felt around 6.5 miles and potentially picking it up from there. I turned off the auto-lap function on Garm and made the mental note to hit lap at every mile marker, providing a more accurate picture of what our pace was.

We were exactly on pace through mile six but Ann was struggling. I let her know we were falling off pace and she asked me not to talk to her about pace any more. Right or wrong, out went the race plan and the only goal became to finish the race and not die from hypothermia.

There were some hard miles in there. I'm not going to talk about what Ann was feeling (you'll have to wait for her recap) but I know that I was freezing cold and miserable. It was literally one of the hardest races I've ever done. I knew that I needed to stay positive for Ann. If I gave in at all, it would've been over. Luckily, we had some awesome spectators, including Colleen, who made signs for us. Here are a few of the blog appropriate ones.

Leaving out all the details that it took to get there (again, it was Ann's race, not mine) we crossed the finish line in 3:08:51 (Garm time). I'm pretty sure I was hypothermic.

Thankfully Kat's husband had parked nearby and was able to give Ann, Jay and I a ride to our car. I could not wait to get out of my wet clothes. I sat in front of Ann's fireplace and I could barely feel the heat. I was chilled to the core. After a latte, a Bloody Mary and breakfast, I started to feel better. I probably spent twenty minutes in the shower when I got home, but even when I got in to bed last night, I was still cold.

the aftermath
I wasn't as sore as I thought I would be when I got out of bed this morning but I took today completely off. In fact, the only real indication of my race yesterday are the scratches on my chest, which is what happens when you carry a GU Chomps packet in your sports bra for 13.1 miles. Posted by Hannah at April 29, 2012 Labels: Race report


I'm Hannah. Thanks for stopping by.