It’s been a few weeks since the Iron Girl race and I have to admit, I’m running on Mother’s Day in another race! There is no way to do justice to the excitement I had in running the Iron Girl. For all of you who have never done anything like this I want to take you through race week.
Being that I have NEVER ran in my life I had no idea what to expect so I again talked to everyone and anyone that has ran a 5k. I received all kinds of advice from very helpful people and will give you the run down.
Starting 3 days prior to the race I was told I should not run again until race day. This was so that your body had rest and was craving the run. At this point all of you who have never done this are on the floor, get back up that’s seriously what I was told. Think about it like this, I had been jogging or walking just about every night for months, all of the suddenly a night without activity is strange. On Thursday there was a packet pick up and I went to get mine and Savannah’s items thinking that this would give us extra time to sleep in on race day. I’m already so nervous that I take my envelope without looking at it and head to the car. I didn’t want to look like a nerd and review everything right in front of all the other racers so I waited until I got to the car to pull my little envelope out. As I looked at the envelope I was extremely confused, the packet I just picked up was for another Mother/Daughter team. Now I had to get out of the car, walk back up the stairs and admit that I had not paid attention. Well, back I went and I did retrieve the right packet. For a moment, before I returned the packet, I had the thought about keeping this teams information because they might be better runners. So correct packet in hand, off I go to get my bags packed and make sure I had all items ready for race day. Yes it’s only Thursday but my husband was nice enough to get us a hotel so that we didn’t have to get up too early on race day. Also, you should know that the bug spread and my sister-in-law, Sadie, started walking with me and was also racing! The three of us were doing our first race together and all very excited not knowing what to expect.
So back to the preparation. Friday comes and my husband and I head to Clearwater for dinner and to check in to the hotel. Savannah, Sadie and Jessalyn (my sister-in-law and 5 year old niece) will head down later that evening. My husband and I head out and he wants to get a bottle of wine. Is he nuts? That will dehydrate me, I
could pass out on the course and never finish. I was told I needed to go buy at least a 32 oz Gatorade and drink this tonight so I don’t dehydrate tomorrow. I can’t believe he’s trying to kill me or at the very least make me sick. At this point I must tell you that my husband ran track in high school and this is quite funny to him. He is trying not to laugh at me but I can tell he is holding back. I’m explaining that I must have this Gatorade the night before because drinking it in the morning doesn’t give your body enough time to use the fluid. That’s when he stepped over the line, and said to me, “It’s just 3 miles”. I stopped dead in my tracks, head spun , pea soup started flying. Just 3 miles, I have been training for months, still have to stop and start, and thought this was the hardest thing that I have ever done in my life. How dare he say “just 3 miles”. At this point he is laughing and trying to retract his statement. If he thinks 3 miles is so easy then he should try it with us as I say this I stick my tongue out and decide I could be a little nervous. So we had the marital compromise, he had a glass of wine and I drank 32 oz of Gatorade while watching the sunset. Very romantic.
Sunset comes and goes, it’s getting late and our roommates have not arrived. By 9:30 they finally roll in and the bed shuffle begins. Everyone vying for a spot where they could be comfortable. We finally have lights off at 10:30. No one warned me about how nervous I would be or that I might have trouble falling asleep. I guess none of my experienced runners remembered or ever had a problem with falling asleep the night before a race. I was not that lucky, I don’t think I slept 4 hours that night. I was sure that I wouldn’t be able to run but when the alarm went off I was up and ready.
My husband drove us as close as he could to the starting line and then he and Jessalyn went and parked the car. Walking up all you could see were people, mostly women since it was Iron Girl. Thousands of people everywhere. We
headed over to the start to look for a race map because I had forgotten to print a course map prior. We walked around for a little while but never found a map which put all three of us in another panic. Not only did we not know what to expect but now we didn’t know where to go. I tried to reassure all of us that we could just follow the people who were in front of us but to make sure they were not 15k runners. Then I remembered someone telling me that we didn’t run over the Memorial Bridge so if we started over the bridge we had gone too far. That relieved us and then we realized how cold it was. We huddled outside the start for a little while, then we thought it would be warmer inside of the group of people so we squeezed through to the center of the group. Here we were, our first race was moments away and then another thought popped into my mind, “I hope I don’t have to go to the bathroom until I get back”. What would I do if I had to go to the bathroom I hadn't asked if I could stop during the race and no one even mentioned what can happen out on a course. I am going to let all of the newbies a little horror, I was later told that you could have an accident while running. Thank God no one told me that beforehand I would have had a nervous breakdown. But here I stood thinking don’t think about it and saying to myself you don’t have to go, if you think about it you’ll make yourself have to go.
This thought didn't last too long because the next thing I new the gun went off and we were starting. I didn’t want to start jogging until we got the official start line, I didn’t want to wear myself out before we even get started. Savannah didn’t feel the same way so there she went. Next was my turn, Sadie had started late on training so she knew she would be slower so I left her. I’m weaving in and out of people who were slower than me or walking. Moving right along to my iTunes trying not to think about time or distance. I haven’t seen a sign but I know that I should be at a mile by what song is on but I have no idea if I’ve made the mile. I finally start relaxing into this and look ahead to see the bridge coming up, I’m not supposed to go over the bridge so I look around me to see if I am still with the 5k runners. I am still with my group so I continue my pace when I again start to panic thinking about the bridge and wondering where the turnaround is. Up ahead I see a water stand but I can’t stop that will ruin my time so I keep going. Finally there is a nice man directing us to the turnaround point. Since we are up on the bridge a little bit I thought I would walk down for my break, I hadn’t taken one yet and I have to be over a mile so I start to walk. Ha, Ha, jokes on me, it’s too hard to walk down the bridge so I start to jog again. I jog down and get to the bottom and decide now I will take my walk break. I start walking again and look ahead to see if I can see a distance marker and this is when I saw the photographer. I can’t let him take a picture of me walking since I have been jogging until this point so I start jogging again. Now I’m going so I might as well continue and I do until I get to the next little bridge and I slow up for a minute. This is the point I finally look at my watch and check my time, I am doing really well and I know I’m on the last stretch so I start jogging again. I don’t stop until I get the fourth mat (another piece of advice from a seasoned runner, don’t stop until you get to the last mat because that’s the one that is timing you). I look back at the clock is at 40 minutes 20 seconds so I beat my best workout time. I’m so excited I can’t stand myself. I did it!
My official time was 38:16 and Savannah’s was 32:55. We were in 29th place out of 116 Mother/Daughter teams!
For anyone who says they could never do this, I’m here to say that you can. I loved the excitement and the challenge. This will be something that I keep up with because of how great it made me feel.
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