Wednesday, May 30, 2012

2012 Rock and Roll Half Marathon


I was pretty sick with a virus the week leading up to Rock and Roll. Felt like a train hit me. I managed to run 3 miles the Tuesday before at Gabriel Park and I barely managed a 12:30/mile pace. Thursday I was feeling about 80% and ran about 5 miles at an 11:30/mile pace. Clearly, my body was WIPED out.

Sunday came and I felt back up to 98%. It took us a while to find parking and then we had the choice to try and find our friends for the pre-run photo, or hop into the extremely long port-a-potty lines.. I opted for the bathroom line. Good thing too, since it took close to 40 minutes to get through the line. At 8:00 I lined at up at Coral 15 and then waited another 25 minutes until we got to start the race. The first 5 miles felt pretty good. Though I could tell I had been sick, because I just didn't have the usual energy in my body. By the time we hit the uphill portion of Hawthorne, I was having to start to combat the negative thoughts in my head. My knees actually felt fine - I just really wanted to be done. The temperature was pretty close to perfect for the day and the light mist felt nice. By mile 10, I was averaging an 11/min mile and this felt like the fastest I could run. I didn't have any more in me to push faster and that was frustrating. I knew my odds of PRing were not good, so my goal became to finish. I was walking 1 min every mile to stay ahead of my knee pain. Mile 11- People around me were probably getting annoyed with my "Dig Deep, it's time to dig deeper" mantra chanting up each little hill. I just kept trying to tell my extremely heavy legs to keep moving.

Seeing the balloon archway was a very happy moment. I was able to push it a little more for a sprint to the end and I was done!! 2:24.00. About a min and a half slower than the Heartbreaker Half, but all things considered going into this race- not that bad. I would have liked to PR - but as a friend and longtime runner pointed out- you can't PR every time. I am very happy that my knees felt good through the entire race- that's a huge praise. I wasn't all that sore and had a nice 5 mile recovery run the following Tuesday.

2 weeks until the Epic Relay - Portland to Eugene and then 3 weeks until  the Sauvie Island Flat Half (really hoping to PR). Praying I stay injury-free!! Then I will be taking a 2 week rest and then starting a new training plan.

Happy Running!

3 comments:

  1. Every race finish is meant to be celebrated. Great job!

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  2. Liz- I am impressed that you did so well after such a draining week. I have no doubt you can PR on a better Sauvie Isalnd course :)Get that knee well!

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