Stomp the Grapes Half Marathon

I ran participated in my first half marathon Saturday.

The plan was to run it, and I did for part of it, but I couldn't sustain it.

The week before the race, both my kids came down with some kind of cold and a nasty cough.  Being the loving, sharing family that we are; I also came down with said cold.  I could feel it starting for the week, so I took extra precautions and took vitamin c everyday, went to bed early, washed my hands like crazy, and I kept it at bay.  Or at least I thought I was.  I might have been in denial about the significance of it, but it is certainly better than more colds I've had.

I knew it would make the race a bit harder, but I certainly didn't anticipate how awful it would be. 

My first mile was faster than it should have been at just under 10 minutes, so I consciously slowed down.  I managed to run the first 7 miles with my planned walk breaks every two miles, plus the water stops that didn't align because I can't drink on the run. 

Somewhere in the seventh mile, I lost my running groove.  I ran the whole 11th mile, but other than that it was mostly walking, with some spurts of running. 

So many thoughts went through my head.  A short list of them is below.

• Should I or should I not call my husband to come pick me up?  (I did not.)
• I may never run again.
• Why do I run?  THIS SUCKS!
• I think I could be happy fat.  
• I trained so hard to suck this much!?
• Why can't I see people behind me anymore?

I did a lot of watch checking the last bit too, because I wanted to finish in three hours, even with the walking.  Mainly because I vaguely remember them saying something about opening traffic back up around the 3 hour mark, but I didn't pay attention because I assumed I'd be done by then.  Clearly, I needed to learn that lesson!

I finished in 2:56:53.  I was 598th of 620 finishers.  That certainly didn't go as planned. 

I felt awful by the time I finished, and was ready to go immediately.  You know it's a bad race when I didn't even stick around for the wine.  I wanted to go home.

To add salt to the wound of my ego for the race, we ate at IHOP on the way home, and I forgot my race bib there.  I realized it when I got home and nearly cried.  I'm obsessive about collecting my bibs, writing my times on them, and hanging them together in my bedroom.  Now my collection is not complete, and of my first half marathon race. 

It's taken me a few days to be able to write this post.  I was still disappointed in my results Monday at work; it didn't help that all my co-workers wanted to know how it went. 

I'm still feeling bad with this cold, which is worse now.  I haven't ran since either, but it's only been a few days.  What my running plans are next, I have no idea.

I'll post a pre-race picture soon too.