Tuesday, May 17, 2011

The Capital City Half Marathon Race Recap

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The Capital City Half Marathon
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Start Time: 8:00am

Warning:  This post is LONG

Ok, I won’t bore you with talking about the expo… I’ll just say, I did end up going by myself which is fine because I got in and out without any problems… and J ended up calling me as I was leaving to see if I wanted to meet up in the morning… AND… before the expo I ate this awesome cookie which was sure to make me fast the next morning! ;)  (yes, it says “Fast Eddie”)

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RACE MORNING, I had set my alarm to go off at 5:30am, but ended up waking up around 4:45am to the power being out! I was seriously a little skeptical on how I was going to get ready for my race in complete darkness… but it came back on around 5am so all was well!!  I ate a piece of peanut butter toast and water for breakfast and hopped in the shower to warm up a little because it was cold!!

DSC01957Getting Ready 

Sidenote:  Yes, I, Zaneta (AKA: the not so girly girl) bought a running skirt!! surprise!!
Another surprise… I LOVE IT!!  Now I understand everyone’s need to buy a
different running skirt for each race ;)

I drove the 1 hour trek to Columbus and was immediately SO glad I had prepaid to park at a specific location!!  Seriously… if you have the option to prepay for parking for a race… DO IT!!!Streets were closed everywhere and traffic was backed up majorly!  While I was at a stand still I was texting back and forth with my fiancé before he had to go to work.  So by the time I parked and walked to the starting location I had about 15 minutes before go time!! lol… nothing like cutting it short! ;)  BTW, I had to pee so bad!! lol…

Well I stopped at the first port-a-pot because I thought that if I just got in a line quickly, it would be my best bet… well after waiting for about 6 minutes I decided enough was enough and started walking towards my corral… funny thing… the lines for the port-a-pots by Corral C were empty! haha… lesson learned! ;) 

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I got to my corral and actually found J and her boyfriend which was surprising due to the amount of people that were there!  This was the biggest race I’ve EVER been to!  It was quite exciting!  I squeezed in beside them just in time for the national anthem and then they started each corral 30 seconds apart… 3-2-1… GO!!

We started out and it was pretty crowded still even though we had a tapered start.  It did end up spacing out quite a bit after mile 4 or so… I don’t really remember anything specific for each mile or anything like that so I’ll just post some things in general…

I ran with J and her boyfriend for about the first 5 miles BUT we started out faster than I wanted to go… I didn’t want to die before mile 6 and I wanted to have fun during this race…I ran my first half marathon last September with an average pace of 10:10 and this race so far, we had been running 8 something miles lol… um… all I kept thinking was “my 5k splits are 8 something miles!! haha… SLOOOOOOWWWW DOWWWNNNNNNN!!!”  Remember how I told you all, that due to my lack of training because of my crazy busy life right now I was forgoing my goal of a sub 2 hour half marathon?  yes… it’s sad, but I was happy with myself that I realized this and knew not to push too hard and end up hurting myself.  I told J to go on ahead because I was pulling up a little… I wanted to just run for fun and I couldn’t do that if I was constantly worrying about burning out or hurting myself.

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I don’t remember exactly when I took my GUs but I remember that I took 3 of them along the course of the race and I grabbed water at EVERY water station and whatever endurance drink they had at about 3 stations… it had warmed up quite a bit and the rain was holding off. 

I had brought my IPod along but never ended up turning it on… there were so many bands and DJs and spectators along the course that I was having a blast without it and I didn’t realize it til about 1 mile left to go because it was cutting the circulation off in my arm so I took it off and held it the last mile. I loved giving all the little kids high fives because they thought this was the most exciting thing ever to watch and cheer for!

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… I saw a banana with a “Don’t Poop…. out” sign lol…(the pic is taken from the capcityhalf fb page) and I saw a charlie sheen poster that said “everyone’s a winner!”  (or something like that) and also one of my faves  “humpty dumpty had wall issues too” lol

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I don’t ever remember having any negative thoughts during this race at all… I remember thinking that I felt really good for the lack of training I’d had and thinking to myself that I would definitely PR this race… and then as I got closer to the finish line I realized that I was going to be really close to my goal time without really trying for it! lol… I was very surprised at myself… there were a few miles that I felt like slowing down but I took inventory on how everything was feeling… how my chest/heart were feeling because I didn’t want to have a repeat of last September, and everything felt good, so I made myself keep a somewhat steady pace those last 3 miles… although they were slower than the previous miles…

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Right before the finish line was a hill… but after the hill it was all down hill to the finish!  I LOVED that!!  I had such a fun time… and I ran most of it by myself… no family there to cheer me on… and that was perfectly ok!  I never ended up meeting back up with J… I ended up being able to see them ahead of me for most of the race… til about 3 miles left… anyways… I sprinted down that incline to the finish because I was so proud of myself and my time!!  I was so close to my goal… but it didn’t bother me like I thought it would… I HAD A BLAST!!!

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Official Time:  2:03:57
Average Pace:  9:28
Overall Place:  2453/6005
Gender Place:  1010/3502
AG (20-24) Place:  168/462

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After crossing the finish line and receiving my most favoritest medal EVER… I grabbed a bagel, water, muscle milk (i had never tried it before and it was better than i had thought it would be) and then after I cooled down a little bit, I grabbed some donatos pizza and headed over to the Brooks Cavalcade of Curiosities to get my gait analyzed… I guess I’m a moderate pronator and have a med-high arch… anyone want to kind of explain what this means and how to fix it? lol…  I guess I’ll have to do my research…

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After all that fun stuff I went back up to the top of the hill before the downhill finish to cheer people on and that was so much fun… just the look on people’s faces when I cheered for them by name and told them they could do it, finish strong, it’s really all downhill from here… it was awesome!  After I cheered for a good 20 minutes, I walked back to my car and found that I hadn’t been alone at all… My fiancé and family were all cheering for me by text messages during my race!!  I have awesome support and I’m so blessed… The text from my fiancé made me tear up…

He basically just told me to keep going strong, that I was almost finished, and that he loved me… so simple, but meant the world to me!

I loved every single moment of this race!!  It was rather emotional for me too… I don’t really understand why… watching all the people after me finish… how emotional they were… I DID PR by 10 minutes, so that was awesome… and being by myself kinda did get to me a little bit, I’m not gonna lie… so I guess that all wraps up into one emotional race… Registration for the Capital City Half Marathon opens June 1st… and you better believe I will be registering for this race again!

23 comments:

  1. Wow, you did awesome! Sometimes I think taking some time off from running helps because I think people tend to overtrain and underestimate what their bodies can really do. The medal is really nice too and all those pics turned out great! Congrats on your fast finish time!

    A.L.

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  2. Thanks amy!! It was so much fun... the medal is huge! lol... i may run races just for the bling ;)

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  3. COngrats on your new PR!!! Isn't it so fun?!? I love running big races with no music and chatting with people and listening to fans!

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  4. Wow - what a recap. I got goosebumps! Have you looked at your photos? Seriously - look at how "fresh" and strong you look compared to EVERY one else around you!!!!!!!!!! You are seriously ROCKING the race!!! Great job! Congrats on CRUSHIN' your PR - 10 minutes - wowzers, girl!!!!!

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  5. great race! congrats! that is awesome.

    loove loove the outfit.

    and that banana outfit with the sign is awesome!

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  6. Awesome job! Way to rock with a great time and rock the photos!

    Love your outfit too!

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  7. Thanks guys!! :)
    Andrew - nice to see you back!! :)

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  8. Girl, you are SO FAST!! And I can't believe how huge that race is!! If you ran around here you'd be winning AG's :D

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  9. Thanks Suza! You just made me smile!! I dont really think of myself as fast lol... so thank you!! :)

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  10. congratulations!!
    what a great time!

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  11. I always love your race reports. Congrats on a great run and PR.

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  12. Well done girl!!! We have a Capital City Half here in the Mitten too and I totally have and love the shirt your wearing! :) You also rocked the heck out of that skirt!

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  13. Congrats on the race and the 10 min PR, that is HUGE!!!

    I love the medal too, so jealous of it

    So did the Brooks guys recommend the adareline or ravenna? High arche, you born with, pronation is your ankles collapse when it strikes the ground when your a heel striker, learning how to run fore or midfoot can fix it

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  14. Awesome - Congrats on a great race and PR! You rocked it! I love all of your pictures - you look really pretty when you run :)

    I'm a new follower - looking forward to reading about your running and wedding adventures!

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  15. Okay - first off, you are ridiculously cute in your running skirt!

    Congratulations - you rocked this race! Look at that .... a 5:31 pace for a while during mile 5? Nice job! Ooh - and then we have a 5:10 and 5:55. You are quite the little speedster.

    I'm glad you had such a fabulous experience!

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  16. Great job. Congrats on your race.

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  17. you officially take the best photos ever.

    Love the "i love you" hands.

    awesome outfit.

    Freaking awesome PR.

    one month & 6 days.

    the. best. ever.

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  18. Congratulations, girl! You look great in our running skirt.

    Whoo hoo!

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  19. congrats!!!! what an awesome race, and i LOVE LOVE LOVE the outfit. you just reminded me that i need to get a black runningskirt :)

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Thanks for stopping by! I love hearing from you! Have a GREAT day!! :)

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