At the last minute, I decided to try to stick with a pacing group -- the three hour pacing group. That was my goal, way back when, before I had actually had to put the training in for these half marathons. I was more prepared for this one than I had been for Gasparilla, but hadn't really done any speed work, so I wasn't sure I could do it. Still, I saw the sign, and my friend Jess recommended I give it a shot, so I did.

And so, off we went. We crossed the start line about 7 minutes in, as the field was pretty big. I met a few nice gals who were running with the "Pacer Duuude" (as one spectator called him). Pacer Dude's real name was Ben, he works at another branch of my favorite running store, and he was very, very serious about his job. He re-calibrated his foot pod at every mile marker and had trained on the treadmill at that pace. His wife happened to be the 3:15 pacer. At one point i joked with Ben that this must be very slower than his normal pace, and he brushed that off, but later he let slip that he did a training run at race pace -- 6:40. Um, yeah, this is PAINFULLY slow for you, Pacer Dude! But he was good natured and encouraging, and I was glad for him.

The first hella bridge was just after mile 1. And when I say hella bridge -- these bridges are quite steep and long, and I am used to training on pancake flats. I had to walk it, but I was able to speed up and catch up with Pacer Dude on the downhill. Around mile 5, I realized I needed to use the bathroom. There was a water stop with two porta potties, but there were lines, and I didn't want to lose that much time, so I quickly decided to bail from the line and catch back up with Pacer Dude. A little while later, there was another one at a construction site (not affiliated with IronGirl) with only 2 people ahead of me. But when someone came out of it commenting about how disgusting it was, I have up on it and once again, caught up with Pacer Dude.

I stuck with Pacer Dude for a total of about 6 or 7 miles. At that point, I felt like I needed walk breaks. I walked a little, then tried to catch up with Pacer Dude. Finally, we hit the last big bridge and I lost sight of Pacer Dude.

After that, it got tougher. For a little while, I hooked up with a gal named Nadine who was walk/running, a minute on, a minute off. That helped for about a mile -- and it was a tough long mile, on a stretch of road where they had narrowed the race course down to just wide enough to maybe be two abreast and no official water stops in sight. Then, out of nowhere, there were these two women who had decided that the gals looked hot and so decided to make their own water stop. Their water was COLD and they were so sweet. It was a highlight of the course.

Another highlight? When we finally did make it to the next rest stop, it was being run by a Daisy Troop. They had put up burma-shave style signs reading "Eight miles Down/Five to Go/Stop and Have/Some H20" And they were so DURN CUTE. It was encouraging.

Finally, though, Nadine was having trouble picking up run segments, and encouraged me to go ahead, so I did, and went back to running for a while.

At this point, it was so hot, but at least it was flat! At around mile 12.85, I saw a girl really struggling (it seemed from the heat) and I opened my water bottle and gave her the last of my water (she was holding a cup). She had someone with her, so I moved on.

After that, I ran. Just before the 13 mile mark, I heard Mike and Seth yelling my name, and I tried to speed up. Mike ran with me a tad, and when I could really see that finish, I took off at a sprint. Whew! Made it into the chute, got my medal and a water AND a muscle milk. Also, ran into Pacer Dude and let him know my time: 3:10. It's not 3, but it's not 3:16 either, so it's an improvement.

As always, train more. I didn't have enough base in to be able to run a full 13 miles without stopping.

Best warm down ever! This says it all:



OK, seriously, walked out of the chute and wandered over to the food area, which was pretty sucky. I couldn't eat the muffin, wasn't in the mood for the banana, and all ingredients of the sausage, egg and cheese burrito were off limits to me. The OJ offered was also off limits. We went and took some pictures in front of the backdrop, dropped our stuff off at the car, then made it to Crabby Bills just as it was opening. Aaaahhhh. A nice lunch of grilled fish and veggies and a tropical drink left us feeling much better. After our friends left, we went and laid on the beach for a while, and I got a henna tattoo on my calf to celebrate the day: a turtle with a 13.1 underneath it. Finally, we learned that we were still childless so we went to the movies. A date day with my hubby, hooray!



Bridges and lack of training.


I thought the food was pretty crummy (and very parsimoniously distributed -- you really can't spare a banana or two for spectators?!?!?!). Also, I heard a lot of horror stories about the parking shuttles, so I was very glad to have gotten there early and gotten parking near the beach. Could have used at least one more water stop. Other than all that, though, had a blast. Very supportive vibe.