3M Half Marathon 2016

If you run a race and don’t blog about it, did it really happen?

I’ve been swamped with homework and general life happenings the past couple weeks, so this post is coming at cha a couple weeks late. Long story short: I ran the 3M Half Marathon at the last minute because YOLO. While I don’t make New Year’s resolutions, I will YOLO more this year. And YOLO I did.

The week of the race started off with little food poisoning on Wednesday from (most likely) a mahi sandwich the day before. By Thursday, I was feeling 70% better, which left me 30% dumb enough to book a flight to Austin on Friday morning for the 3M Half Marathon on Sunday. Online registration closed on Wednesday, so I had to wait for registration to open back up at the Expo and hope it didn’t sell out by the time I got there. So I basically ran the most expensive half ever by paying double because I registered late and by booking a flight two days in advance. But it was worth it, cuz this girl.

That was Friday night. My plane landed and I literally Ubered to a bar to meet Melissa and her co-workers. I also had the best Uber driver because he asked me if I wanted to plug my music into his stereo to “get the party started.” How did he KNOW?

Anyway, it took my stomach a few days to recover from the food poisoning. Any time I ate, I didn’t feel so hot afterwards.  Luckily that cleared up on Saturday, right in time for this.

My race day eve burger from The Silo on 7th. Which might change to a race day eve white rice and saltine cracker because…race morning, I woke up feeling OK but it didn’t take long for my stomach to decide otherwise. I made it to the start but the tummy trouble made it impossible for me to eat OR DRINK during the race. Thankfully it was cool out that morning or I probably would have died trying to make it to a banana at the finish.

Overall, the race OK. There were no emergency runs to the bathroom so I’ll call that a win any day. My stomach definitely affected my speed. The faster I ran, the worse I felt which was such a bummer because I kept thinking about how MAGICAL my race was last time I ran 3M. Still, I’ve felt and done worse so I’m ok with it.

I finished and that’s what counts. My medal glows in the dark, which also counts for something.

I finished in 2:17:25. Six minutes slower than my race the week before.

Post race consisted of a delightful brunch at Jack Allen’s (minus the woman who licked her fingers and then touched the serving spoon *shudder*), many mimosas and Deep Eddy peach/sweet tea drinks, and then sadness because I had to fly home. Because let’s face it, I was in Austin for the company more than anything else.

I have one more half this season coming up on March 5, which Melissa will also be running. I swear I have seen her more in the past 8 months than I have seen some friends that live in town. Not that I’m complaining!

Plan for the next race: I have no idea. I’m upping speed training and hoping it’s not to late for it to affect my race time for a race that’s in 3 weeks.