There's No Place Like Home

Kris and I completed the Crystal Lake Half Marathon on Sunday morning and had a great time. My first thought after running this race was, "what the heck am I doing training for a full marathon, the half is really the way to go!" We stayed at my in-laws house on Saturday night and it was like a running re-treat. They cooked for us all weekend with specific meals tailored to our running needs and did all of our dishes...we were spoiled rotten.

We arrived at Lippold Park around 7:00 am and signed up for the race rather quickly. We figured out there were around 600 runners. I also was quickly reminded that C.L. is a running community. Most of the runners were very fit and very competitive. For a second I wanted to go out and run hard but then remembered our goal. After a mile warm up and some stretching we loaded ourselves into the starting area for the 8:00 am start. I had us go to the back 1/4 of the group out of respect to the "racers for the day." We were just kind of standing there and all of the sudden we heard a "Bang" and everyone took off. No announcement, no "Attention Runners."

About a mile into the run Kris and I met this middle age gentleman whose shirt read, "50 marathons in all 50 states plus D.C." I asked him if he did this and he said it took him 17 years, but yes, he definitely did. I asked him if he had any suggestions or tips for our first marathon and he responded with, "tape your nipples." I was hoping for some inside tip and that was all I got.

While we were definitely back of the pack runners for this race, I knew that we would be passing some people towards the end. There were about 100 runners who were more of the social training groups whose goal was to just train for this race and hadn't done many runs over 8 miles. We picked a goal (we needed something to make us feel like we were some type of racers) to pass all the women who were from the Crystal Lake Running Depot with their orange singlets. Kris also wanted to make sure we passed the guy who had his IPhone strapped on his arm playing music for all to hear. When he ran by us, Rush was blaring out so we called him Rush. The good news is, we hit our goals! Rush was close, but we passed him right in the last mile. As we passed each person/group that we had our eyes on we said some generous words of encouragement, but inside our heads we were really saying, "see ya' later sucka's!"

At one point along the race route there were some young kids who wanted to give us high fives but Kris reminded me, "give them your elbow, you don't want swine flu!" So, sure enough we went elbow to elbow with the 7 and under crowd. We also received words of encouragement from one of the fire/police stations as the goal of the run was to raise money for families of fallen police officers and fire fighters. It was a nice reminder of an extra bonus to running this race.

As for race conditions, it was pretty stinking hot outside. The late 8:00 start didn't help and we ran on a lot of open roads with some major hills. The plentiful Water/Gatorade stops were helpful and I took advantage of pouring the water on me. This is a huge help in cooling off as it gets rid of the resting salt on the skin. And trust me, I get salty. So salty, that I could attract deer! If it ends up being hot on marathon day I will definitely be more aware to do this more often. I may even have some friends/family hold some wet towels for me on the sidelines.

The high school kid volunteers were great, clapping at every aide station and turn that kept us on course. The only negative was how they were a reminder of how old I was and how quickly I became the opposite of what they are now; a competitive runner. One kid was wearing a St. Thomas grade school sweatshirt and I said to him, "Hey, I graduated from there in 1992." Wow, that sounded archaic!

At the end of the race I was pretty pooped out and just as we saw the finish line ahead, we had a great greeting of our friends Jeff and Terri Templin, their adorable son Brody and my father-in-law/Kris's dad. I didn't think having people at the finish line would be that big of a deal but it was really a nice treat and an extra incentive to finish quickly! We finished in about 2 hours 18 minutes which was a little faster than planned but sometimes we couldn't help ourselves with the pace. We received our ribbons (side note, Kris was happy to get a ribbon until he saw another guy walking around with a medal. He got all pissed and I told him that he was probably a top finisher and if he wanted a medal, all he has to do is run faster) and a bottle of water. That's when I threw all caution to the wind and paid the price.

I chugged my ice cold water! I couldn't help it, I was so thirsty. I then went to the car after saying hello/goodbye to the Templins and chugged my Gatorade. Within 5 minutes, I felt so nauseous. We drove home to Kris's parents, walked in, and smelled the yummy smells of breakfast cooking. However, I kept feeling worse and worse. I thought the cure would be to chug a chocolate milk. I felt instant relief...for about 30 seconds. Then, the smell of bacon filled the house and I sprinted to the bathroom and basically projectile vomited right into the toilet. Thankfully, I have good aim. I had to miss out on the great breakfast and it took about an hour and some cantaloupe and pineapple to cure me. All of the tips I have read say to, "sip, sip, sip," after a long run. Well, I learned my lesson the hard way.

I'm enjoying the day off of running today heading into the most difficult week of training. We have 5, 10, 5 and thennnnnnnnnn TWENTY! 'Nuff Said.