If you had told me 10 years ago that I would help celebrate a friend's birthday by running a half marathon, I would have looked at you like you had two heads but...here we are in all our glory celebrating Beth Creapeau's 40th birthday in Virginia Beach VA at the Rock n Roll Half Marathon over Labor Day weekend. The shirts were fantastic thanks to our friend Jim who is a graphic artist. They read "Beth is RUNNING out of Youth" and on the back "13.1 feels like 40". It was a crazy weekend that included cake, shots of tequila (my first hard alcohol in several months) a fantastic pre race dinner at Aldo's and a post race meal at Captain George's Seafood buffet (the crab legs were to die for).
The highlight of the weekend was friends getting together to celebrate. Beth's friends from Charlotte including Coach Jackie from Team in Training, sister Aimee, Bob and Kelly plus her friends from Orlando: Joy, Debbie, Sandi and myself joined forces to make this birthday one to remember. Complete with a pink and black Birthday Princess crown, Beth definitely didn't go unnoticed during the weekend and the race itself.
The low point of the weekend was Beth sustaining an injury at mile 1.5 of the half marathon. In the crowd in wave 16, she fell forward and injured her shoulder. The average person would have gone to the next medical tent and exited the event. Not Beth. She had the paramedics put her arm in a sling and she FINISHED the race...sling and all. She is one tough lady.
Beth returned home and visited the doctor for a diagnosis. We are all sitting on pins and needles to find out the prognosis. She needs an MRI to determine the extent of her injury. My prayer is that this will not keep her from doing Ironman Florida.
As for me, I did not fair well in the race. I awoke on race morning feeling pretty tired and hurting in alot of places. Call it old age or overtraining or the simple fact that a plus size woman was running 13.1 miles but it just wasn't my day. Later I was to find out that I should have switched out to my new set of shoes and I was off on my nutrition by several hundred calories. This is why you do these races prior to the "big one". If you can test your nutrition and equipment, it can make your Ironman experience a whole lot easier.
I won't lie to you. I was very sad after the race. I had headed to Virginia Beach with hopes of a PR and left with a time that was slightly slower than last year. Hector assured me yesterday as I ran my 10 mile training run that all would be good on race day in Panama City. I was hoping this would be my confidence builder but I will need to continue to look for those workouts that are going to make me feel like I can really do this. I am kinda worried.
1 comment:
Don't get down - you are training for an Ironman, not a half marathon. I found that everything got slow as I tried to do longer stuff. Speed isn't necessary, consistency is...... you are doing great!
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