Run to the finish and don't disrespect the bike

Yesterday I forced myself out on the bike. I did an hour and fifteen minutes. After an hour and 5 minutes, I had had it so I stopped to run for a little bit to see how it felt. I feel pretty good transitioning from the bike to run so I told my sis and she told me I wasn't working hard enough on the bike, so I tried focusing on that today. I only ran just less than 1/2 mile and I was running around 8:00 pace without any effort. I felt like I was running 10:30 pace. I thought I tried hard on the bike but still I stink at it. Not hard enough.  My pace went down from last weekend - from 5:29 average pace to 5:13.  Improvement!

The bike:

By the end, I was thinking, I better research how to change from olympic distance to sprint for the June race.  Also after a car passed me and someone screamed out, I got nervous maybe they didn't see it or got too close to me. I think I'll be riding on the trail from now on (but I did enjoy house hunting while I was riding).

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Today was the ODDyssey half marathon. I ran a 1:54:59 or faster - I started my watch before I crossed the line.  After 2 weeks of sluggishness and eating like crap and junk workouts, and then sleeping horribly last night, I was kind of thinking, oh man, why did I decide to do this?  I also woke up and got my period. Awesome.  I'd so much rather have Sunday morning with the family.   I picked up a girl from my running group and headed down. I did just over a mile warmup and felt ok, then just hung out at the start.   It didn't seem like it was going to start on time, but suddenly, it was like 3-2-1 go!   No talking or announcements at the start, it was weird. (no usual mayor speech, director speech, none of that). There had to have been people still standing in the port-a-potty lines.

My strategy was to go out comfortably, at about 8 minute mile pace and bring it down if I could later in the race. If I held 8 minute pace it would be a PR and since I ran 8 minute pace at Broad Street not even feeling well, I figured I could do it EASILY.  I started out kind of stuck between people and didn't want to be running super slow so I did weave a bit and what was comfortable was slower than I hoped, like mid 8s.  In the first mile I saw a baby around Kara's age in a stroller with her mom and was thinking - why am I here? I should be home with my family!  By mile 3, I was just not feeling it. We passed through the finish line after 3 miles and I would have been happy to be done. There were multiple times where I thought about walking to the finish and just not finishing. I just wasn't into it today. My mile 7 I knew that biking yesterday was really dumb.  My legs were shot. I couldn't move by mile 10 and was barely moving. 

There was alot of negative talk throughout the race:
this sucks
why am I here?
I'm taking off a week of running after this
how am I going to run a marathon
why would I want to run a marathon?
this feels like the second half of a marathon 
My legs don't want to move
Why did I bike yesterday?
should I just walk to the finish and not officially finish this thing or should I finish?

A couple of things that helped: 
-Trying to spot Lindsay on the course and the girl that I drove down. I spotted Lindsay looking strong around 4/5 miles in her black tutu - awesome costume!  And my running group buddy too. She was going for a 1:45 and that was what I thought I could run too.   There were 2 out and backs so it was good to see those 2 and that there were a good number of people behind me too.

-People in costumes


When I went through the halfway point, I really had to bring myself out of negative talking. I wanted to stop running. I wanted to be home.  I kept on smiling and trying to move forward. I thought maybe I would do the optional twists on the course to lighten up a bit  but then when I went past them, I realized it would take even longer to get to the finish. And they seemed kind of silly - a moonbounce, game of Jenga. I saw 2 people go for the moonbounce and no one was playing Jenga.  There weren't too many fans, but I think seeing the other runners still going behind me kept me going. I just wanted to finish.   Throughout this race, I thought of Marlene - have you seen her 5 year transformation photos? and her success in running and just felt happy for her. And I thought of Amanda because all I was thinking is RUN TO THE FINISH. RUN TO THE FINISH.  I stopped looking at my watch and didn't care. I peeked at it for the distance once and saw my pace was in the 10s and I didn't care. I could not move. As you can see...

I stayed in the game in order to get my medal and pint glass but wow, I have never felt like I wanted to quit so badly as I have today and in Broad Street.

 The best part of the race - I got to meet Run Blondie!
I wish I had gotten it together to wear a costume!