LOVED IT!!!!! And Shot Blocks are a Gift from God

First of all, I need to send a HUGE Thank You!!! to Lisa for putting up with me all weekend long and letting me invade her life and home. A big thanks to Javadad, too, for putting up with it! She was the best host ever and I completely feel like I have known her my whole life. It was awesome. And to finally, after nearly 4 years, to get to meet Marcy was just awesome! And she really is just as *gangsta* as you would all think ;) LOL

I had such a great time with Lisa, Marcy, David, Mendy and Karen and could have stayed so much longer. They are everything you read, completely amazing people :)

I think I will do a separate post about the weekend in general, but just wanted to talk a bit about the race first.

I was seriously, disgustingly undertained for this run. Last week I went through tons of doubts and by Friday morning I realized that I hadn't even had a run long enough to require me to try any kind of nutrition or even have to drink water :X Needless to say, I was soooooo nervous and had no expectations of any kind....well, maybe not to die on the course :P So, to help allievate most of my major concerns, Lisa and I decided to do a run 5, walk 1 at a pretty easy pace. This helped calm me down so much and I finally just decided that whatever happened, happened. No point in stressing.

Karen got us to the race perfectly Sunday morning. It was seriously timed so well and I don't think things could have gone smoother between the lot we parked in and the shuttle we rode to the start. I felt great, the weather was cool before the start, but it was going to be a great day to run with great friends. The only thing that was not cool were the nasty porta-johns before we started :X We all changed our corrals to 16 so we could be together. Taryn was there with us, too! And people, she is such a sweet girl! I am so glad we found her and got to run with her for a bit. We finally got running roughly 32 minutes after the race officially started.

Once we got underway, I felt great and could not believe how fast 5 minutes had passed. I was all about keeping running, but the overall consensus was to stick to the plan and not burn out too fast. I should add, too, that I had a package of Cliffs shot blocks and some sport beans with me. The sport beans decided to jump out of my pocket about a mile and a half into the race :P But those shot blocks were safe in my hand for the duration. The package recommended taking 3 - 6 an hour, but since I only had about 6 of them, I decided to just use them sparingly. I had one at the start and then waited until maybe mile 4 or 5 to have 2 more. We had a couple of bathroom breaks during the first 4-5 miles that ate up a lot of time, but everyone was doing well. Taryn left us after maybe 2 miles or so. She was feeling awesome and rocking it, so she kept moving to run her own race and Karen fell back somewhere in that mile 4-5, I think (but could be off in my estimation...sorry Karen). She really pushed through some major leg pain and did an awesome job! So, it was Lisa, Mendy, Marcy and I until mile 8.5 or so. At that point Mendy and Marcy needed to use the bathroom again and I knew to get Lisa a PR, she and I really needed to keep moving. So we kept moving and pushed on to get her a PR!!!

Back to the shot blocks. I know I had the last one (or two??) right around mile 9 and I just cannot believe how those suckers kick in! I felt so good those last couple of miles, just wish I would have had a few more ;) Miles 10 - 13 were a bit more rolling than the rest of the race had been and Lisa probably didn't like me very much when I made her keep running, especially at the pace I was forcing her to go :X I think most of the time we were running in those last 5 miles I was pushing her to between 9 and 10 minute mile paces. She is now to refer to me as Jillian from the Biggest Loser. I think most of the people we were running around in those final 2 miles probably thought I was one of the meanest people on the course :X But even as much as she was bonking, she never stopped smiling!

I am so lucky to get to run my first half with such AMAZING people! I am so proud of Lisa for putting up with my bossiness and pushing through even though she would have rather pushed me off the bridge and kept walking ;), so proud of Mendy for pushing through even though she was feeling horrible the entire race and of Karen for fighting through her pain and still getting a PR for herself! YAY!!! Taryn really rocked her race and David and Clay both killed it!

This was an awesome experience and I think I just may be in love with both the distance and definitely with the shot blocks! Would it be wrong to just use them daily for extra boost?? LOL My only complaint two days later is some wicked arch pain in my right foot. I am hoping that it will be gone here soon and then I can just blame it on overuse. New shoes are definitely in the plans soon!