Charlottesville Women's 4 Miler - 2014 Recap

I recently wrote a very belated post about the running I did in August, mostly emphasizing that I had barely done any! This was even with the extra effort I made to get in some miles in preparation for the Women's 4 Miler. I remember feeling unprepared last year for the 4 Miler, but this year was even worse. And then, to add onto that, I came down with a cold 5 days before the race. Joey caught the cold about a week before I did, so I unfortunately knew what to expect. In the days before the race, I barely had enough energy to do my normal activities, let alone go out for a run. The last run I ended up doing before the Saturday race was on Tuesday. I had planned on doing a run on Thursday, and a little shakeout jog on Friday, but couldn't muster the energy.

Instead, I spent as much time as I could resting. On Friday, I walked a mile to the packet pickup for the race, and even that felt taxing. I was in such a fog! Everyone there was so happy and excited, that it helped pick me up a bit. I remembered from the previous year, that they sold race tees from earlier years, and made sure to bring cash with me. I picked up the 2012 shirt (I already had the 2013 shirt from last year) and a pair of running socks, for a total of $8. The 2012 shirt was pink with silver writing, the new 2014 shirt was HOT pink with white writing, and the 2013 shirt I got last year was baby blue with pink writing. All of the shirts are made by the same company, and fit exactly the same - I really like the fit, so I'm excited that I have three of them now!

With the combination of general lack of training, and feeling really crappy, I decided my only goal would be finishing. That was it - there was no way I could make any pace goals. The cold was completely in my head at this point, with congestion, headache, and runny nose. I had some doubts as to whether I would even be able to finish the race!

In the end, not only did I finish the race, but I was just under a 10 minute pace! I definitely didn't feel great during it, and there was a point around 2.5 miles, where I just wanted to stop. I was so glad that I pushed myself through that point, and that I did the race at all. Joey was great, and came out to support me, even though he wasn't through with the cold himself.

One thing I'll note - this is the only race where the distance on my gps device (garmin watch in this case) was actually shorter than the official race distance. Usually I end up tracking slightly longer than the official distance (10.08 miles for the 10 Miler, 5.08 miles for the 8k, 6.42 for the 10k and 3.21 for the 5k - okay, you get the point). This time, the garmin had recorded 3.94 miles for the 4.00 mile race. Last year I used runkeeper, which recorded 4.07, although I've noticed that runkeeper always over-estimates mileage. Either way, this time I had the pleasant surprise of finding that my calculated pace was actually faster than what I was seeing on my watch!

Official results:

Everything set up, the night before the race. This was the first race where I actually wore the race shirt. I think that I can be picky about what I wear when working out, and don't like wearing anything new. Since this year's shirt was exactly the same as last year's (except the color), I knew I already liked it. The 2012 shirt is seen in the bottom left - it's slightly darker in color than the 2014 shirt. And what do you wear when you're wearing a neon pink shirt? Bright orange shorts, of course!

In my typical "post-race" stance. Why do I scrunch my face up so much when I smile? 

My post-race food. Since clearly, running 4 miles entitles me to eat 3000 calories, all in carbs

Btw, that bagel at the top (in the shape of a ribbon) was the best thing ever. I believe it was cherry vanilla with walnuts? Panera needs to make that all the time

Also, I love my new running socks (pictured below)! They only had size large, which I believe is one size too big, but I think they still worked out okay. I would definitely buy more pairs.

Race Recap: Michie Tavern Downtown Mile

This post is way overdue! Two months after the fact, I'm going to tell you about a race I ran in July.

My friend Ann is very well-known member of both the running community and the yoga community here in Charlottesville. She is the founder of the "Runners Love Yoga" movement/philosophy, which promotes yoga as a way to make you a stronger, faster, and less-injured runner.

Ann contacted me about the Downtown 1 Mile, a few weeks before the race. She told me that Runners Love Yoga was holding a Healthy Living Expo, and there was going to be a one mile race that went along with the Expo. Notus Sports, the company hosting the race, was looking for some bloggers in the area that would write about the race and Expo.

I was very excited to be involved, but also a little nervous, considering the fact that I had barely run at all since the 10 Miler in March. I was of course honored that I was asked to participate in a race, for free!

Fast forward a few weeks, and it was the day of the race. It has been threatening to rain all day, and I was really hoping it would hold off. I'm not sure I would have ended up running if it really did rain! I had all of my clothing options lined up, as usual, in preparation.

I got downtown early, so I could walk around, and check out the other race groups. You signed up for a specific type of 1 mile race. The first race was a team relay, that was timed and scored. This was followed by both the family race, and the non-competitive run/walk. Both of these options were supposed to be timed, but not scored, so you wouldn't see your results. The next race was the middle school mile, which was timed and scored for all middle school runners. Finally, the elite races were run for men and women separately, and these of course were timed and scored.

When I signed up, I wasn't sure which group to put myself in. The previous year was the first year this race was held, and it looked like it had been consolidated into one group, since there was a wide range of recorded times. I'm clearly not an elite runner, and never would have put myself in that group normally. However, I did want an official recording of my time, and it appeared that this was the only way I could get it.

They had a bunch of volunteers from Notus Sports to help out with registration

Some runners from the family/non-competitive race. Check out the runner wearing a Runners Love Yoga singlet (bright blue tank)!

After I finished walking around, and did some warmup jogging, I waited for my race to start. I felt so out of place! Everyone was clearly a serious runner. I kept telling myself that my time DID NOT MATTER. I knew I would probably be at the very end of the pack (but was still hoping that wouldn't be the case). I was there to have fun, and to support everyone involved.

As predicted, I finished dead last! Thankfully I wasn't too far behind the person in front of me - otherwise that would have been pretty embarrassing. The first women finished in just about 5 minutes - Ann came in 3rd place, even though she was helping organize the Expo! My official time was 8:07 - which is the fastest race pace I've ever had! This was by far my shortest race, but whatever, I'll take a PR when I can! (You can see from the Garmin results below, that I didn't stop the watch right away.)

After I recovered from my race, I hung around the finish to see the men finish. The first one finished in just over 4 minutes! Super fast!

After the men's race ended, there was unfortunately a lot of waiting around time. I wandered over to the area where the Expo was being held, and checked out the booths.

Finally, they started the award ceremony! The volunteers from Notus were in charge, and they had some representatives from Michie Tavern say some words as well. They even had someone there in full colonial dress, to hand out awards!

The top three male elite runners

The top three female elite runners - with Ann, the second from the right

Once the awards ceremony ended, Ann talked a bit about the Expo, the vendors there, and gave an introduction into yoga. She then set everything up so we could have a post-race yoga session! I was most looking forward to this, since it had been way too long since I had attended one of Ann's yoga classes, and now I could do one for free! While I may have been one of the slowest runners there, at least I was somewhat familiar with yoga, so I felt a lot more comfortable in the poses than some of the runners did!

A slightly sweaty post-yoga photo op! Btw, I LOVE Ann's shorts! I'm rocking the race t-shirt (on top of the shirt I came wearing - nowhere else to put it!)

Now that I've given a general recap of the events, I'm going to mention some of my opinions of the event and how it was organized. When Ann reached out to me, she put me in touch with an intern at Notus, who was supposed to take care of my registration and all of those details. I didn't hear anything from the intern until 4 days before the race - at which point, I had figured that they weren't going to give me free entry. I had hoped to get registered in advance, but was told that I would sign up at the registration table (as pictured above), and everything would already be taken care of. I figured that meant either the intern I had talked to would be there, or she would have left my information with them. The people there had no idea who I was, and when I mentioned the intern's name, it sounded like she had promised free entry to quite a few people. Thankfully, they didn't question it, and still gave me entry to the race.

This brings me to my next issue. There was no parking for the event, and there also was nowhere to drop off your belongings. I had Joey drop me off, to avoid the parking issue, but that meant I had to only bring with me what I could carry. Once I registered and got my race tech tee, that meant I had nowhere to put it. I asked if they could hold it for me, and I would come get it after the race, but that wasn't an option. I know it was a small race, but that would have been a nice additional touch.

There was a lot of confusion about the timing of the race (when it would start). I think that a lot of this came from the fact that there were several different websites where information was being reported/provided. The main website was http://www.cvilledowntownmile.com/ but not much new information was being posted there. There was a separate website, on the Notus Sports home page, that gave some additional information. There was also the Notus Sports facebook page, which I'm not sure how I even stumbled across, and that apparently had the most information. I happened to find it the day of the race, and found that the race times for the elite races had been changed. I would have had no idea otherwise, and this wasn't mentioned to me when I registered. Perhaps runners who had pre-registered online were being emailed updates, but since I hadn't done this, I wasn't hearing anything.

My next "complaint" is about the reporting of race times. When I signed up at the race table, they didn't ask for anything besides my name. At first, when the race times went up, they didn't even have my name linked to the bib number and time. They finally added my name, but didn't have my age or hometown included. And again, I had to go through their facebook page to even find the results. The results are not listed on any of the other race websites, including the main one. My biggest surprise was that they did in fact record the family and non-competitive times, meaning that I probably should have run in that group.

The race itself was run very well, which wasn't surprising, since Mark Lorenzoni from Ragged Mountain Running was at the start line. I think my general issues stem from the management that Notus Sports did - it really seemed like they left everything to 18 year old high school/college girls, and these girls weren't equipped to handle that much responsibility.

The last thing I'm going to say is about the Expo. I was so sad to see that only 3-4 groups/organizations had a booth set up. I thought that this could have been a great opportunity for many organizations to reach a lot of the running community in Charlottesville. I'm hoping that this event will be held again next summer (with better management by Notus, or a different group), and that the word will get out to many more vendors and organizations. 

Michie Tavern Downtown Mile

I decided to do a race*! This was a last minute decision, considering both the nearness of the race, and the lack of training I've been doing lately. This Thursday (July 24th), the Michie Tavern Downtown Mile will take place as part of the Runners Love Yoga Healthy Expo. I'm pretty excited about it! The Expo goes from 5-8:30 at the Downtown Pavilion in Charlottesville. It will include vendors, food, the race, and a FREE post-race yoga class led by Ann Mazur, the founder of Runners Love Yoga, and my favorite yoga instructor at the UVA Aquatic & Fitness Center. The entire event will benefit the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society, and it is being organized by Notus Sports.

One great thing about the race, is that there are different start times for different groups of people. This will make each start time much less crowded! The Team Relay will start things off at 6:30. Next includes the non-timed events of the Family Race and the Non-competitive Run/Walk at 6:50. The Middle School Mile starts at 7:10 - this is such a great idea to get kids out and running. Finally, the Elite Downtown mile for competitive runners starts at 7:30 for women and 7:40 for men. This set of races comes with cash prizes for the first finishers!

As I mentioned, I have NOT been training. I've gone on maybe one run a week in the past few weeks, and before it was even more sporadic than that. Every time I've run outside, the heat and humidity just kill me. Last week I planned a 3 mile run outside, and told myself that I would walk whenever I needed to - no judgement. I ended up walking for 2 minutes after the first mile, and for another 2 minutes somewhere after the second mile. Last night, I ran on the treadmill, since the air basically felt like pea soup outside. Lately I've been listening to books on tape while I run, but I had unfortunately just finished the book I had on my phone. So instead of going at a steady pace while listening to a book, I did what I used to do (before I knew anything about running) - I just listened to music and let that dictate my pace. During a faster part of a song, I would increase the pace, and then bring it back down to recover. We all know that intervals are good for us, but sometimes we get caught up in the intervals being a specific amount of time at a specific pace. I just did what felt right, and I think it worked out well for me. I wasn't keeping track of the time, but my steady pace was 5.6mph, and my fast pace ranged from 6-7mph. I did 1.25 miles running, walked 0.25 miles, did another 1.25 miles running, walked 0.25 miles, and ended with a 1/2 mile jog at my steady 5.6mph. I left the gym feeling wiped!

My plan is to do a light run/walk outside on Wednesday, and not much more than that. I don't want to wear myself out too much with running, since I haven't been doing much of it lately. I'll probably try to do some light lifting as well, to help strengthen my muscles.

For the race itself, since I haven't been training, I don't want to have any major goals in mind. I know that I'll only end up disappointed if I hope for a time that I don't succeed in getting. I think that I'll say that I hope I can finish in under 10 minutes. That sounds completely doable (it isn't much below my steady pace).

All in all, if you're in Charlottesville this Thursday, you should come out for the run! Whether you are an experienced or novice runner, a mile is such a good starting point. In conjunction with the Healthy Living Expo, the Downtown Mile will be a remarkable event and a fun way to spend a Thursday evening. Plus, you get a shirt for doing the race (tech tee for the last events, I believe a regular shirt for the others), and who doesn't love shirts??

*Disclosure: I am being offered a free entry into the race, if I promote the event and write about my experience here. 

10 Miler Training: The Final Week + The Race!

Week 16:

Well, it's finally the week of the race! This should be an easy week of running, with the hardest day being Tuesday (and obviously, the race itself). I had to alter the plan slightly, since the plan assumed a race day of Sunday, instead of Saturday. I also didn't want to do too much right before the race, and tire out my legs or feet.

Tuesday, March 25th:

This was the speediest portion of my training, but since the mileage was low, it felt like a break. I wasn't sure that I would be able to maintain my "5k pace" for a whole mile, and then repeat it, but I managed to do it. After that, the 400m at 3k pace felt really easy. 

Thursday, March 27th:
I went out on a nice, easy run. The weather was pretty good, so I took advantage of that and did the run outside. I planned on doing a 4 mile run, but miscalculated where I would have to go for it to equal 4 miles. It ended up being 3.67 miles, which was close enough for me. I was proud of my negative splits throughout, with the exception of that last 0.17 miles.

Friday, March 28th:
I met Joey at the AFC to do some stretching and light jogging. I jogged 1/2 mile on the indoor track, and then walked another 1/2 mile. Then I did a good 30 minutes of stretching, on a mat and using the foam roller. Once Joey was finished with his workout, we went to JPJ to pick up our race packets. I was a bit surprised once we got there - I was expecting to get a bag with goodies, including an actual race packet. We were just handed our bibs, and then the t-shirt. Also, the shirt was not a tech tee this year, but was a regular cotton shirt. It's really soft, which is nice, I was just surprised by that. There was no race packet - they had some printed out maps you could take, but nothing with information about the race, last year's winners, coupons, etc. I specifically remember last year that Joey got a packet. I think that the packet also helped build excitement for the race - you could look through at all of last year's winners, and read their mile by mile description of the course. There were also coupons for stores like Ragged Mountain Running, which wasn't the case this year. It would be one thing if they were trying to save paper, and emailed it out this year instead of printing for everyone, but that wasn't the case. I also was hoping they would be selling last year's shirts - usually they have them available for only $5. Oh well.

I spent a bunch of time that night prepping for the race, setting out everything that I needed, and trying to mentally prepare myself. I was really unhappy about the weather forecast - basically 100% rain from late Friday night through Sunday. The last race I ran (Richmond 8k) had rain, and I was not prepared for it at all. This time, I wasn't going to be happy about it, but I wanted to make sure I had a plan to protect my phone from getting soaked. Joey used a quart-sized ziploc bag, and cut small holes where my armband would go. I made him make two of them, so I would have a backup. For clothes, I was planning on wearing long running pants, a short sleeve shirt (the one I got from the Women's 4 Miler), and a lightweight longsleeve pullover (it has a zippered pocket in the bag that's perfect for stashing tissues, gum and gu chomps).

Saturday, March 29th: RACE DAY!!

I woke up at 6, and my nerves sunk in immediately. I looked out the window and was surprised to see that there was no rain, but figured it would be starting soon. I kept telling Joey over and over again that I just felt sick - my stomach was in knots, and I felt so anxious. I was so afraid that the leg pain that had been plaguing me would prevent me from finishing in a time I was proud of, or even finishing at all. I ended up bursting into tears during the drive over, and asked Joey if he wanted to switch places with me and run the race for me. Yes I know, that was extremely inconsiderate to ask the person who was dying to run the race, if he could, to run it for me.

I choked down most of a granola bar, as pre-race fuel, and then went on a short jog around the start. It worked out that going up and down the road in front of the arena was exactly 1/2 mile. The jogging helped ease some of the tension in my stomach, and did help loosen my legs. I still had about 15 minutes before the race started, so I had my GU with water, and walked over to the start. Since Joey had a bib, he was able to stay with me all the way until the gun went off.

I had all of my electronics set up - I had my audiobook paused so I could just press play on my headphones, I had Joey's garmin watch synced to satellites, and I had runkeeper going on my phone just in case. We had switched one of the settings on the watch - instead of giving me my current pace on the screen, and then pace for the last 1/2 mile, I wanted my overall pace. I didn't have a chance to test it out, so I had runkeeper going in case it didn't work the way I wanted. As soon as I started running and started up my audiobook, I realized that I was many chapters behind where I actually was. It was a bit annoying to re-listen to about 30 minutes of the book, but that gave me time to zone out and figure out what felt best with running.

The watch worked perfectly - the pace on the home screen was my average pace, and it still gave me my lap pace every 1/2 mile. I realized pretty quickly that runkeeper was ahead of the garmin in terms of distance, and the garmin seemed to be true to the actual mile markers setup. There weren't digital displays of the time since the gun at each mile, but they had someone with a stopwatch reading out times. They must have had to sync all of their watches, since some of the mile markers were way too far away to hear the start. I figured out that I was ~45 seconds behind the gun, based on the times they were reading.

I knew I had to start out incredibly slow in miles 1 and 2, and did manage to do this. I did mile 1 11:02.4, and mile 2 in 10:51.9. I started to feel better once I had passed a lot of hills, and picked up the pace to finish mile 3 in 10:21.5. I knew I would be seeing Joey soon after the 3 mile mark, and was so happy to see him at 3.25 miles. At this point, I was approaching the downhill portion of the race. I definitely picked up the pace, to complete mile 4 in 9:49.4 and mile 5 in 9:58.9. The course started to go uphill again at around 4.5 miles, once it hit the downtown mall. I knew the coming part would be difficult, once I got to the end of the mall, since it was both hilly and unfamiliar to me. I managed to keep it together, completing mile 6 in 10:02.9 and mile 7 in 10:15.3. Just before the 7 mile mark, I had two more GU chomps, and washed them down with some gatorade at a water stop. It took me about 10-15 seconds to do this, which shows that mile 7 was probably even a little faster than my time shows. They must have given me a lot of energy, since I completed mile 8 in 9:43.2. However, once I hit that mile marker, I ran into a block. I lost the energy that I gained in the previous mile, and just felt mentally drained. I stopped at the next water stop for some water, and then I saw Joey standing there! He gave me the push to quickly gulp down my water and keep moving. Even with that water stop, I finished mile 9 in 10:14.1. For the last mile, I really kicked up the pace, and finished that in just 9:11.7. I was surprised to see Joey again, right around 9.75 miles, to cheer for me to finish!

I will point out here that although the garmin watch was pretty reliable, I hit the mile 9 marker just slightly past when the watch told me that I had done 9 miles, and I finished the race with my watch reading 10.08 miles. I think that the total race distance was slightly more than 10 miles, since it's unlikely I did something in the last mile to add that much distance. All of the paces I have mentioned above are for the garmin miles, and I finished that last 0.08 in 0:38. This leaves me with two numbers for my "overall pace," the one that uses the garmin distance, and the one that assumes the race was an even 10 miles. My garmin pace was 10:08 min/mile, and my race pace was 10:12 min/mile. Starting out my training plan, my initial goals were 10:30 pace, then 10:00 pace, then 9:30 pace, in order of easy goal, moderate goal, difficult goal. Once I started having a lot of calf pain in the last month of my training, I decided I had to adjust my goals to: finish the race, under 10:30, under 10:00. I am happy to say that I accomplished the first two goals! I also achieved a negative split when comparing my second half of the race to my first half. According to the timing system, I did the first 5 miles in 52:02, and the second 5 miles in 50:01. I think that's something to be proud of.

For my final results, I finished 131/207 in my division (females 25-29), 671/1142 for women, and 1322/1952 overall.


Oh and lastly, IT NEVER RAINED!!! I was so thrilled that throughout the whole race, it was nice and cool, albeit incredibly humid. Once I had finished, picked up race food, and got into the car, it started raining. It rained the entire rest of the day. I can't ask for better timing than that.

Also, pictures are supposed to be posted tomorrow - I will definitely try to put some of them here! I tried to make some kind of triumphant pose while going through the finish line - we'll see how that worked out.

100% humidity - yikes!

Recap of 8k Race

After all of my training, I ran my 8k race! Of course, the race was over two weeks ago, and I've since recovered. Now I will finally tell you all about it.

The race was in Richmond, about an hour from Charlottesville, and we had to pick up our packets the night before. We got a cheap hotel to stay in, that was right near the packet pickup, and only 2 miles from the start line of the race. I made sure we were all prepped on Thursday, since the plan was to leave on Friday as early as we could. We usually have a late dinner, but considering how early we would have to wake up Saturday morning, we wanted to eat early and go to bed early. We checked into the hotel, picked up our race stuff at the expo next door, and then went to Olive Garden for dinner. I hadn't been to an Olive Garden in years! This was the perfect time to have endless breadsticks :)

I was super prepared for the race, and when we got back from dinner, I set out all of my options. I basically had two of everything! Two pairs of pants, two sports bras, two pairs of running underwear, two pairs of socks, two under shirts, just the one long sleeve running shirt (plus the one I got at the expo), sweats for after the race, and lots of hair bands and headbands.

I figured in the morning I would decide what I wanted to be wearing. I kept checking the weather, over and over. Originally there was a 20% chance of rain in the morning, but it looked like a storm was supposed to hit that night. I kept checking the hourly forecast, to see if the rain would be over by the race. Things looked promising, but Joey brought one of the trash can liners with us, in case I needed to protect my phone. I use an armband when running, but it doesn't completely cover the phone, and I was afraid that water would get in if it started to rain. When we got up in the morning, everything looked clear, and the forecast was saying cloudy, but we brought it just in case.

My race was starting at 7, and Joey's was starting at 7:30, just one block away from mine, so he helped me prep. We were standing under cover, and it wasn't until we started walking around to find the bag drop off, that we realized it was raining. Then it started pouring. We quickly got back under cover, and wrapped the plastic bag around my armband. Thank goodness we brought it. I felt really bad for Joey, since he was getting soaked as well, and still had a bit until his race. He left me at the start, and I was stuck there, with the rain pouring down on me. I was drenched, cold and miserable. At this point, I really didn't want to be running. I had gloves on, and was trying to coordinate everything so once the race started, I could pull back my left glove to start my heart rate monitor, and then pull back my right glove so I could start runkeeper on my phone (my gloves don't have special pads for touch screens). I was so discombobulated at the beginning, that I wasn't able to get the heart rate monitor started. I almost didn't get runkeeper going, but somehow that did end up starting okay. I think I just started it a bit too early, while we were all shuffling toward the start.

Once I started running, I felt better. I was still soaked, with water streaming down my face, and my drenched clothes hanging off my body. But the book I was listening to on my phone really helped me zone out, and I didn't have to do very much zigzagging around people. Somehow we all spread out pretty quickly. I was in the first wave, probably the only time that will ever happen, and I didn't have to run around very many people in the beginning. My plan was to do the first mile in 9:50, miles 2-4 around 9:30, and then the last mile as fast as I could. Based on some of my last runs, I know that I have a pretty good kick at the end. In terms of goals for finish times, I wanted to definitely finish under 48:30. The 5 mile run I did earlier that week was hilly, and I managed to do that in 48:34, so I would have been really angry if it took longer for me to complete the race. My next goal was under 47:00, then my final goal was under 45:00. With the plan above, if I did the last mile in 8:30 or less, I could finish in just under 47:00.

I ended up going just a bit faster in the first mile than I had planned, finishing it in 9:37. I held that pace pretty well, and finished the second mile in 9:35. Here, I decided to kick it up a little, and finished mile 3 in 9:09 and mile 4 in 8:41. At this point, I kept doing the math in my head every time I got an update through runkeeper, and realized that I could actually beat my goals. The end was all downhill, and I kicked it up to a spring at this point, doing the last half mile at a 7:20 pace. At this point it had stopped pouring, but the ground was so wet I was afraid I would trip while running downhill! I finished in a flash, and then went through the chute to pick up my medal and get some water.

I recovered a lot faster than I thought I would, and at first was disappointed in myself, thinking that if I had picked up the pace more in the beginning of the race, I could have gotten a time under 45 minutes. In the end, I was really proud! My official race time was 45:25 for the 8k course, and runkeeper clocked in at 45:40 (probably since I started it too early) for 5.08 miles. I never get the same distance, probably because I don't run it at efficiently as I could. My runkeeper time put me at an average pace of 8:59/mile, and my official time put me at an average pace of 9:08/mile. Either way, this was the fastest race besides my 5k in Disney, and definitely my fastest race over 3.1 miles.

After my race finished, I had 1.5 hours until Joey would be done. I walked over to the area where they were giving us back the bags we checked at the start, and changed into some dry clothes. I was a bit too modest to strip down completely, and didn't want to attempt the acrobatics involved in changing in the porta potty, so I didn't completely change out of my wet clothes. I took off my sopping wet long sleeve running shirt, but kept on my running tights and my tank top. I put a sweat shirt on top of my tank top. The rain kept coming and going, and I just walked around aimlessly, trying to pass the time. I ended up calling my sister, and she kept me occupied for a while :) I had originally planned on just sitting down somewhere and listening to music or a book on my phone, but that didn't seem like a good idea once everything was wet. I was still on the phone with my sister once I realized it was close to the time Joey was hoping to finish by, so I quickly got off the phone and went to the finish. His first half marathon time was 1:54:15, so his first goal was to beat that time. His next goal was to be under 1:50, and his final goal was to be under 1:45. As the clock started ticking closer and closer to 1:45, I kept my fingers crossed that Joey would finish soon. I knew that his wave started 2 minutes after the gun, so he technically had until around 1:47 to beat that time, but I wasn't sure how exact the 2 minute delay was. Imagine my surprise when I see him at just around 1:44, coming down the hill. He ended up finishing with a gun time of 1:44:43, and a chip time of 1:42:39!! He beat his last time by almost 12 minutes, which is just insane - that's almost 1 minute faster for his average pace. He was completely beat when he finished, so it took a few minutes to recover. After that, we just wanted to get out of there, so we grabbed some food and went back to the hotel for a hot shower.

Splits: (average pace, pace in last half mile)

0.51 4:54 (9:36)

1.00 9:37 (9:37, 9:38) last mile in 9:37

1.51 14:40 (9:43, 9:54)

2.00 19:12 (9:36, 9:15) last mile in 9:35

2.50 23:47 (9:31, 9:10)

3.00 28:21 (9:27, 9:08) last mile in 9:09

3.50 32:43 (9:21, 8:44)

4.00 37:02 (9:15, 8:38) last mile in 8:41

4.50 41:17 (9:10, 8:30)

5.00 45:07 (9:01, 7:40) last mile in 8:05

5.08 45:40 (8:59) 

last 0.08 at 6:53/mile

last 0.25 at 7:12/mile

last 0.50 at 7:20/mile

Now that I finished this race, I'm ready for my next! I signed up for the Charlottesville 10 Miler Training Program, and the race is on March 29th. I haven't gone to any of the group runs yet, but hopefully I'll go to one this month. Joey made me a color coded training plan for the race! He told me for the few weeks following the race to just run whenever I felt like it. Starting next week, he put together a 4 week plan to help get my miles up, so I'll be ready for the training plan. Starting the second week of January, I'll be following his 10 miler training plan. He adapted it from the plan he used for his half marathon. I'll have to make my goals once I'm closer to the race, but my tentative race goals are under 1:45, under 1:40, and under 1:35.

Speaking of training plans, I should probably mention how my 8k training plan went. Below, I have my 8k training plan, and I have checked off the workouts that I did complete. Not all of them were done exactly in that order, but those are the ones I definitely did. You can see that I did 27 of the 41 runs prior to the race, which I'm pretty happy with. I ran more than 125 miles in the 11 weeks of training.