Race report!

Soooooo

I did it! Not in the time I wanted, but I finished and that's what counts. My official time was 2:36:30. I except I would've came in at a 2:10 about if I hadn't gotten sick at mile 9. I had to make two bathroom stops. Sad, but I'm proud of myself for pushing through the illness and finishing in a pretty good time considering that I had to stop twice.

SOOOO let me give you the play by play.

First let me say that I woke up at 3:45 fricking AM this morning. That is hands down the earliest I have ever woken up in my life. I changed into my running clothes and grabbed my pre-packed stuff I had gotten together the night before, hopped into the big yellow Service Master truck with my parents, and we were off. We arrived at the South Shore Cultural Center at around 6AM, so I had plenty of time to stretch and get warmed up seeing as I picked up my race packet the day before. The time pretty much flew by and before I knew it I was standing at the starting line in my wave corral.

I crossed the starting line feeling really good. My breathing was fairly even, and I tried really really hard to pace myself despite the fact that the competitive edge in me wanted to run ahead and pass all the runners in front of me. The race was all along the lake front path downtown, so it was really nice running along the lake. Miles 1-4.5 were fairly easy, but after that I started to feel myself getting a little tired. Still early on in the race, I got pretty worried but kept tredging along.

Let me interrupt myself by saying that I'm really thankful for all the amazing people who prayed for me and encouraged me along the training road and during the race. All of you guys are the best! Being a Sunday morning, I had to miss church, and didn't even really realize it until I got to mile 6. Along the race course, there were signs with little jokes, or famous Chicagoan quotes, and right after the mile marker for mile 6, there was a sign that said...

"I've got a fever ... and the only prescription is more cowbell!"

And in that moment, I knew I was going to finish. On the worship team at my church, we always joke about that quote. Every time someone mentions the band doesn't seem as full, or the song is missing someone, it usually only takes a few seconds for someone to say "...could use a little more cowbell..." or "how about some cowbell?"
It was like God reminding me of my amazing church family all praying for me as I ran. So thank you for your prayers!! You guys are the best!

At mile 7, I started to hit the wall. I was also starting to feel sick from a mix of the gatorade they had and not eating enough for breakfast. I knew I had to figure out a way to keep going. The race was a big loop, and during mile 8 I believe it is you do a turn around and start running down the opposite side of the lake front path...so going in, we could see all the runners who had begun to start back to the finish line...so I decided to count all the people who were wearing black bottoms. It totally worked! I was so distracted counting black bottoms that mile 7 and 8 flew past like crazy. At mile 9, I got sick and had to stop at the bathroom. As mentioned earlier, that and one more bathroom stop significantly hurt my time. I ran the last three miles repeating my counting routine. When there were no more runners to count, I counted the yellow lines on the lake front path...when those turned into one straight line, I counted the cars that passed on Lake Shore Drive which we were running next to. Mile 12 was really hard. My legs were pretty sore and I really just wanted to stop running. The last mile was adrenaline filled to the max. By this time, some of the runners who had finished were walking on the grass next to us, shouting out words of encouragement and families had camped out telling us, "you're almost done! you can do it!". Once I heard the crowds at the finish line that's what did it and I started sprinting. My parents were waiting at the finish line for high-fives. I crossed the finish line super super happy. After crossing all I remember is people handing me tons and tons of stuff. Haha. But yeah, I just remember walking into the grass, and thinking that I wanted to stop so bad the last mile, but now all I wanted to do was run again because my legs had started to cramp up after stopping and while running I couldn't really feel them. It's funny how things flip around on you.

Anyway I'm super proud of myself for finishing. I learned a lot about racing and training and will definitely be taking a little different approach to training when I start training for Indianapolis. So yep! That's it. Now maybe I'll start blogging about other stuff besides running...although it isn't really likely... ;-)