chips and salsa? yes please!

...and while I'm watching all my blog people do IM-Moo (y'all are looking great!), I'll rattle on about me (you know, for posterity).

I did my first actual stand-alone timed half marathon today. Me and my beloved. And then my kiddos ran a whole 1K.

OK, so technically I did a half when I did the Buffalo Springs Half Iron, but I've never had an opportunity to run as fast as I can for 13.1 miles for a t-shirt. And a finisher's medal. With no swim breaks or bike breaks.

The Chips N Salsa race features a 5K, a 10K, a half-Marathon and a Kid's K, so there were a ton of people out today. I love family races. Plus, Hello - they provided childcare! That meant we could all run! This is a big deal in my house - usually we have to do a lot of juggling where races are concerned. Lately the kids are pretty psyched about their kid runs, so they are easy to convince.

This race is pretty popular amongst the locals. Though there are a lot of fast locals, I don't guess they're all from around here. There are a lot of elite runners who turn up at this race, and some Kenyans, and some Koreans.

The finishing times start at about 1:06 and go up from there.

I saw the leader (it was an out and back course, he passed me going the other way when I was at about mile 4 or 5). Yeah, he was fast. The fastest females weren' t far behind - 1:09 was overall female winner today.

The running community is relatively tight-knit, so I do see some of these people training at my training grounds, and they are amazing to watch. Today was an perfect day for the race - nice and overcast, early start, temps in the mid-60's, not too humid.

The course was mostly flat, pretty fast. I had trouble believing it was going to be fast, I bike the course pretty frequently (in fact I rode it yesterday), and there are a few hills. I was surprised how fast they went away under my feet. I was actually dreading it. It's a long, straight road.

Anyway.

I wasn't sure how it would go - I had a bike ride yesterday, ran La Luz road on Thursday, I had a nicely mixed week. We signed up for the race at the last minute, and I was going to treat it like a long training run.

This was the first time I've used a gel flask (WHAT A GREAT IDEA!!! HOW COME NOBODY TOLD ME???). Gel flask fits perfectly in the leg pocket of my Gymgirl Skirt. I barely knew it was there.

So off I went.

I was kind of surprised to find that I felt so good for the first few miles. It seems like I've had a lot of crappy runs lately - brick runs where I'm tired to start with, or long runs when I had a superlong bike ride the day before. By contrast, today's run felt great!

Dangit, why do I always have to go potty on the run? I mean, I'm good before, I usually drop a lot of ballast prior to the start - but seriously. Every. Time. I need to make a stop. I lost 2 minutes at mile 3 at the potty (fortunately, the only stop en route).

My coach's (excellent) advice was to pick it up after the turnaround if I felt good.

And I did. So I did. It wasn't much of a pickup, but I did a negative split in the end of about a minute. Not too bad.

I was doing mostly pretty good, keeping my pace as steady as I could. I tried to pick it up in the last 3 miles because I wanted to get as close to 2hrs as possible.

The wheels started to come off at mile 12. I was really pushing hard. I started to get tunnel vision.

Right before the finish, the terrain abruptly changed from paved road to gravel and dirt road. It was a very mean trick. I couldn't really control my feet, I kinda lost it in the last bit.

I came in at 2:08:18, and it was my best for the day. I couldn't speak for awhile.

All my friends did really well, a few fellow Outlaws also came to run: Mighty and Sluggo pulled in PRs for the day at 1:38 and 1:44. My beloved 8-ball is very very pleased with his 1:32. Go-go showed us truly how it's done with a 1:28 - a 2 minute PR for her.

My friends are awesome.

I have been so tired for the rest of the day, we've spent the day flaked out (much like the new puss). I've had two naps and 1.5 dinners. I felt the same as after I finished my first triathlon - like I'd been hit by a truck.

So yeah - I think I left it out on the course. Can't be unhappy with that.

(brain not working. will log off now)