Fitness for America Half Marathon Recap

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Well. I have been posting race recaps for all my races, but I am not as excited to write this post. The good news is that I finished the race without passing out or dropping out. The bad news is that I had to walk a couple times, which is the first time that has happened since my very first cross country race during my freshmen year of high school when I totally didn't know what I was doing. Yeah.

What I did wrong:
  • Sleep. I went to the midnight Dark Knight Rises showing on Thursday night. Then I didn't sleep well on Friday night because, well, I never sleep well before a race. Something I need to work on, I know. Honestly, I was exhausted. I knew it was a bad idea to go to that movie, but I did it anyway.
  • Water. It was hot, hilly, and humid. I was sweating like crazy. There was water every 3 miles and I got some at every stop, but I think I should have tried to drink more at each stop, because I felt a little better each time I drank. I think I should have brought my camel bak. 
  • Heat. I have made sure to do all my longer runs outside, but I have been either getting up early or running on the treadmill. I just wasn't acclimated for the heat and I paid for it. Also, I'm probably never signing up for a July half marathon again.
  • Hills. There were hills in this race and I haven't been training for hills. 'Nuff said. 
Also, Friday was a very emotionally taxing day for me. I've joked with people before that I should never go to midnight showings, because I always end up crying over something because the lack of sleep screws me up so badly. It's kind of funny in retrospect, but this last one was no exception. I had a pretty bad misunderstanding with a family member and even though it was resolved with hugs in the end (praise God for that), there were many tears before we got there.

At one point in the race, we were on a road going straight into the sun. Of course, I forgot my sunglasses. It was really hard to see and really hot running on the pavement. I think I started to get pretty dizzy at one point because I thought to myself "I wonder if I just closed my eyes, I would pass out and someone could just come get me and I could be done."

Then at that moment, Needtobreathe's song "Keep your eyes open" came on my iPod (these are the parts of the song that stuck out):

If you could soldier on
Headstrong into the storm
I’ll be here waiting on the other side
Don’t look back
The road is long
...
Keep your eyes open, my love
So tell me you’re strong, tell me you see
I need to hear it, can you promise me to
Keep your eyes open, my love
...
Keep your eyes open, my love
So show me your fire, show me your heart
You know I’ll never let you fall apart if you
Keep your eyes open, my love

Some of my friends will call that a happy coincidence, but I really do think that God used that song to help me finish. As I said before, I didn't drop out or pass out and that was the victory of the day. Also, the popsicles at the end were brilliant.
the good: post-race popsicle that matched my singlet
And I got my third Chicago Half Marathon Series race in. So I'm officially getting a shirt now and I'm eligible to win something for my age group. There are prizes for the top 3 and only 2 people from my age group ran enough of the races to qualify last year. So it might not even matter that I ran a bad race. Gotta count the positives! 

<3 Amy

Comments

  1. BekahJuly 23, 2012 at 4:17 AM

    Way to hang in there, Amy! Proud of you! And I love that song too :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousJuly 23, 2012 at 8:43 AM

    Maybe not your best race ever, but we have all been there. Good job sticking it out! I think God sometimes 'speaks' to me through music. When you feel so low and out of nowhere you hear something you really need to hear, that's not a coincidence in my book.*

    ReplyDelete

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