Crawlin' Crab Half Marathon '14

Waiting to start, in Coral #1

We picked this race specifically for cooler temps and God sure did deliver on our request.  Saturday was in the 70's, today will be in the 70's, but yesterday morning it was in the 40's!!!  My brain had a hard time adjusting what I was going to wear, but in the end, I was thankful for the brisk morning.  A big perk to this race was that it was so close to our house, had super close parking to the start line and the convention center was open all morning (i.e. we could use real bathrooms and not port-a-potties).

Before the race

After the race

There were a lot of really good things about the race.  We felt strong and averaged an 8:35 pace until mile 10...when things went not so great.  But that's later.  Ben was incredible and took care of us and encouraged me through the whole thing.  This year, I didn't see a single person keel over or throw up or suddenly jump into some bushes.  There were plenty of water stations and they even offered gu packs and bananas along the way.  I personally think eating a banana while running is gross, but the thought was nice.  Our top 2 goals for the day were to finish together and to finish under 2 hours.  Praise the Lord, we accomplished both goals!  Our official time was 1:54:04 and we crossed the finish line holding hands, partly just to be funny. 

 

So you may be thinking that having a goal of finishing together sounds funny.  I have an extremely hard time feeling like I'm holding Ben back.  Maybe it's pride or maybe it's that I love him so much I want him to have his best run possible, but we knew that at some point in the race I would tell him to run ahead and he would tell me never.  It happened yesterday around mile 10.  My achilles tendon had been slightly bothering me the last few weeks.  I had been taking care of it and was aware that it would probably hurt a little during the race.  I could feel it the whole race, but by mile 10 it started to really hurt.  Our plan for the race was to think of it as a 10 mile run with a 5k race at the end (i.e. pick up speed the last 3 miles).  We got the 5k part and Ben asked if I was ready to pick up the pace, but all I could say was "no".  We slowed down and Ben talked me through the last 3 miles of pain.  I also get very angry at injuries and was mad that we couldn't push it to the finish line.  BUT, we finished and ran the entire time and met our goal.  Without an injury I'm confident we could have finished in the 1:40's.  Ben helped me hobble to the convention center for some beer and soup, which by the way, do not go well together.

The only other con to the race was that there were no crowds cheering us along the way.  There were maybe a handful of people along the way, but the run was quiet.  Even the runners were quiet.  It was weird to me and I realized how much I am motivated by music or cheering.  It was mentally challenging for me and eventually I made Ben play some music on his phone.

I am so proud of us and exceptionally proud of Ben.  This was his first half marathon and he didn't even seemed phased by it.  He could have run faster and longer and wasn't even a little sore yesterday.  He came home and mowed the lawn and took Alison on a long bike ride.  Do you know what I did?  I took a nap and iced my ankle.  Ben's back at work this morning and my mom is here to help me.  I'm so thankful that we had this experience together and we have the health to be able to do it.