Race Day Report

I am very happy to report that the race is over!! The night before I of course got a terrible night's sleep because I was staying at my in laws house and nervous that the alarm wouldn't go off at 5:30 AM. Turns out that would not have mattered because I woke up every half hour anyway and couldn't go back to sleep at all past 4:00.

They were calling for rain and cold temps that day so I had to pack a variety of racing wear. It was a bit chilly at first but thankfully the rain held off. I arrived about 6:00 AM so had plenty of time to get prepared, drink water, eat a granola bar, etc. It is always a tough call to know how much to drink before a race because you want to be hydrated but you don't want to have to pee. Turns out I went a little overboard with the water.

I used the bathroom once after I got to the site but then near the starting line I thought I should use the port-o-potty too. As I am waiting in the mammoth line I notice it getting closer and closer to start time and just before the gun went off I ditched the line and started pushing towards the start.

So we were off. It was a very pretty course through downtown Frederick, MD. We went along the main street downtown of shops and restaurants (still closed of course) and wound around past my old high school (the building was much uglier than I remembered). It was a pretty level and attractive course so I give high marks for that aspect.

Problem was that about mile 5 I really had to go to the bathroom. I ran past the first set of port-o-pottys because I couldn't bear the thought of stopping so soon in the race but when ya gotta go, ya gotta go. I decided to stop at the next set and was about 5th in line. It was quite depressing to be standing there and have hundreds of people pass you by. ARG! It seemed like forever but after what was probably 3 - 4 minutes I was on my way again.

I was feeling pretty good and even munched on a Power Bar at the halfway mark but about mile 10 I realized I would have to use the facilties once again. At least there was only one person in line that time so in less than 2 minutes I was on my way. At this point I joined up with the 4:00 marathon pace group (the marathon and half-marathon started at the same time) to get some encouragement from their leader, a jolly British guy with gray hair.

At mile 12 I was still feeling good and the pace leader announced that if the half-marathon folks wanted to finish in less than 2:00 they had better pick up the pace. I broke away from them and did my best to keep up a faster pace for the duration. As we entered the home stretch I started running and when I caught a glimpse of the official clock at 1:59 I was sprinting with all of my might. I passed over the mat at 1:59:50.

So I was happy but didn't have anyone to celebrate with. I just grabbed a complimentary banana, a couple of donut holes and drove back to my in-laws house where my family was waiting. As I got out of the car my daughter yelled "Did you win Mom?" When I answered in the negative she said "Did you lose?" I was happy to say that I did not.

The next day I got my results. My chip adjusted time (from when I passed over the start mat) was 1:58:30 giving me a 9:00 mile pace and an overall finish of 626 out of 1842 racers. In my women's age group I was 45 out of 180 so feeling good about that. If not for the potty breaks I could have done slighly better but no biggie.

When I finished the race my first thought was that I couldn't believe I ever ran TWICE that far. Seems totally crazy to me now. But the race really wasn't that bad and I'm already thinking about doing another one this fall. When you are a stay-at-home mom you are always racing around, it was nice to do it officially. And get a metal to boot!