Gen and Haakan rock the half marathon

Funny the things that change when you have children.  I've commented many times that my 23 year old self would have been horrified that, for example, sleeping until 8am qualifies as "sleeping in" these days.  What qualifies as a date, apparently, is Haakan and I getting up at the crack of dawn to run 13.1 miles, which I'm sure would be considered anything but a good time to many, but I have a soft spot for this particular half marathon.  It's the Ikea Montour Trail Half Marathon, and it was the first half marathon I ever did, 2 years ago not too long after I started running.  It's a really nice out and back course, the first 1.5 miles (more or less) is downhill, so you can build up a little cushion, the rest is fairly flat (though the subtle up hill from mile 6 to the mile 7 turn around is easily the longest feeling mile of the race), and it's on a trail with a good bit of shade.  It doesn't hurt that the weather always seems to be fabulous for it, too.  I bagged on it last year - I was 16 weeks pregnant and had a full on panic attack in the car just thinking about it, so I switched to the 5k and ended up with a PR - but I was determined to do it and do it well this year.  Given my recent races, I knew going in that this was probably going to be my slowest half marathon, but with that in mind I wanted to just run it in a smart way, and set a reasonable goal.

We almost didn't make it to the race since my mom, who graciously agreed to wake up early and come watch the kids, was pretty late getting to our house, but it all worked out since we weren't ready to leave when we thought we would be, anyway.  Everyone woke up right as we would have been waking out of the house, so we had to attend to their various needs.  Barely making it to the race in time seems to be a theme with this particular race, but we got there about 10 minutes before the start, got our chips, and didn't have time to be worried or nervous.  Though I'm sure Haakan wasn't all that nervous - he might not have done the distance in a while, but since he runs his training runs quite a bit faster than I run mine, I knew he'd be able to do it and be just fine.  This is the man who did this same half marathon in 1:31 and change last year, so I was pretty sure he'd be able to keep up with my 10+ minutes per mile pace.

I have to say, the first 8 or 9 miles of the race were very pleasant.  The weather was beautiful, our pace was well chosen, and I just plain felt good for that distance.  The lack of a water stop from miles 6 to 8 was rather unfortunate, but we survived ok.  Haakan turned to me at one point and said, "This is just so *nice*, you know?" and I had to agree, it's just really such a nice race.  We saw the leaders come through right as we hit mile 6 (so they were two miles ahead of us at that point!) and I always love seeing the leaders.  It must have given some of the runners around us a burst of inspiration because we got passed by a bunch of people and I remember thinking "where did *you* come from?", as I usually think when I get passed like that halfway through a race.  The last three miles were kind of rough, which we were both expecting.  I hadn't done more than 10 miles in quite a number of weeks, so I knew I was going to have to just gut it out for the last three.  Haakan was very encouraging, kept chatting to me about different things to take my mind off of how tired I suddenly felt.  I had to stop and walk after the last water stop because I managed to swallow a bunch of air and my stomach felt like it was going to burst.  After I burped like 5 or 6 times (yeah, running is a sexy sport, let me tell you) I felt ok to keep going, and just sucked it up until the end.  The last 2 miles were totally a mental game of me telling myself that as much as I wanted to just walk it in, I didn't need to and should just keep going.  I had gone in with finishing under 2:30 as my first goal, going under 2:20 as a secondary goal, and going under 2:15 as my "all the stars align and I somehow pull out a faster pace than I probably will" goal.  when we passed the mile 12 guy and he said we were at 2:07 and change, I knew we were going to make it in under 2:20, and the pressure was off for a sub 2:15 finish, since that just wasn't going to happen.  I had nothing left in the tank for a last mile sprint by then, but if we just kept going, we'd make it easily under 2:20.  I managed to pull out a final burst of speed to cross the finish like at 2:18:50, making it my slowest half marathon, but one of the best races I've run since Charlie was born.  I came out exactly where I should be, performed exactly according to expectations, and I had nothing left by the end.  I can truly say I ran the best race I could run for the shape that I'm in right now, and I had a good time doing it.

On a side note, I had some fun with my addiction to lululemon running gear and Haakan and I played "spot the lulu" for the first 8 miles of the race.  I saw more than a few pairs of speed shorts, and one girl passed me in the savage green run: swiftly top that I've been kicking myself about missing out on ever since they sold out a few months ago.  One of the lead women was in head to toe lulu, wearing the same shorts I was, just in the citron color (which I like better than what I've got, truthfully, but oh well).  We also had some fun with the old railroad tunnel that we ran through around mile 3, joking that it would definitely be nice if it was *really* a time tunnel (if your kids watch "Dinosaur Train" you totally get that one), unless it took us back in time rather than forward, because that would obviously suck during a race.  I'm sure the other runners around us thought we were crazy, but at least we were entertaining!

Here's us after our 13.1.  This was actually about an hour later, I'm sure I looked more like a tired pile of goo immediately after the race than I do here, when I'd dried out a little.