My First Half Marathon - Love/Hate at its Best

Ok, I’ve finally started to write my “official” race report for my first ever half marathon: Virginia Beach Rock n’ Roll Half, August 31, 2008.

The weekend began Friday afternoon, as Pete and I took the bus down to DC after work. We went out to dinner and a few drinks, but were home before too late to rest up for the next day’s drive to Virginia Beach.

Dave picked us up from James’ apartment at 10:30, and we were off. We ran into a bit of traffic, but made it to the expo by mid-afternoon. Thankfully, I had no problem changing my corral (I had initially entered 2:15 as my anticipated finish time, but in the 4 months since I’d registered I felt my fitness had improved to a 2 hour time). So, after picking up our race numbers and browsing the vendors, we headed to Dave’s parents’ place (they live in Virginia Beach) to watch the rest of the UVA game and enjoy a pasta dinner his mom had kindly prepared for us. It was nice to have a relaxing evening with delicious food and not have to worry about crowds, etc. However, as we were eating outside I began to worry that the humidity was exceptionally high (as predicted). It got slightly cooler as the night went on, so I thought we might have a chance.

Around 9pm, we arrived at the hotel. I did not expect much, as it was relatively inexpensive, but it definitely lived up (down?) to my expectations. The location was good, though, and it slept four (bedroom with a queen sized bed and a pull-out couch in the living area). Upon entering our room, we were hit with the stench of cigarettes. I’m not talking about a faint smell here, but a putrid odor that suggested a family of carton-a-day smokers had taken residence there for several months just before us. We had requested a non-smoking room, which the front desk assured us we were given. After complaining (no other rooms were available), they suggested using some sort of machine that could “clear” the air. The only downside: it took two hours, during which we would have to leave the room. At this point it was after 9:30pm, and I did NOT want to wait until midnight to get in bed when I would have to be up before 5. We decided to suck it up for the night and – get this – use our free Glade plug-ins we received in our race bags. Yes, they gave us melon-scented air fresheners that we had made fun of earlier, but quickly plugged in before bed. With the mingling scents of smoke and sweet melon, we went to sleep. Well, I tried, at least. The mixture of nerves, smells, and screams from drunk people running through the halls prevented me from falling asleep until after 1.

Less than four hours later, I awoke to the alarm. I was afraid of dragging my three boys out of bed at 5am (they are usually very sluggish, even at normal times in the morning – or afternoon, as the case usually is). However, I think everyone was excited and ready to go as we made our way to the shuttle stop at 5:30. The line stretched for three blocks, but we decided to wait because walking would have taken a while and I voted not to expend any unnecessary energy before the race. I started to sweat as we STOOD in line. This was not good. The humidity was high, higher than I had ever run in. Oh well, I thought, let’s just hope for the best.

By the time we got to the start, it was around 6:20. I had never seen so many people! We checked our bags and headed for the port-o-potties. When people say those lines are long, they are not joking. No sir. I was nervous that we wouldn’t get through in time, but luckily I made it through and to my corral with about 5 minutes to spare before the gun. I was in corral 8, and they utilized the wave start (each corral started about a minute and 30 seconds after the previous one) so I had a little more time to mentally prepare myself. I really enjoyed the wave start, as it definitely prevented crowding along the way. Thankfully I had my Garmin, so I didn’t have to worry about subtracting 14 minutes and however many seconds from the gun time shown at each mile marker (I try to prevent from having to do any unnecessary calculations along the way). I set my training partner to a 9 minute mile, still clinging to a sub-2 hour goal time. After what seemed like forever, we were off!

Miles 1-3

I had inched my way towards the front of the corral, so I had nothing but road in front of me and fresh legs beneath me. I had to constantly tell myself to SLOW DOWN, but my legs wouldn’t listen. I knew I had a long way to go, but they treated it as if it was a 5 mile race. Uh oh, I thought, when my watch read 26:xx at the 5K mark. Slow down, Meredith. You’ll never make it. Around that point, we saw the elite women pass by (around their 15K mark) and everyone cheered. Even they appeared to be struggling, I thought, and again slowed myself slightly.

Mile 1: 8:24
Mile 2: 8:36
Mile 3: 8:34

Miles 4-6

After the 5K mark, I settled into a 9 minute pace. This isn’t so bad, I thought, as I cruised through the first few water stations and gave spectators high fives as I passed. Around mile 6, the humidity really started to hit me. I was already drenched in sweat/water I had poured over me, and my breathing was become much more labored than it should be. Bad thoughts went through my head, and I started to wonder what I had gotten myself into. I’m not even halfway, I thought, and I’m starting to crumble.

Mile 4: 9:02
Mile 5: 9:00
Mile 6: 9:20

Miles 7-9

We had reached Camp Pendleton, the military base that happened to be fully exposed to sunshine and extremely curvy. Up until now, the course had been mostly shaded and pretty straight. Sun began to beat down on me, and the sweat went nowhere. I was soaked, and it was awful. MANY people were walking. I took my Shot Blocks, hoping for any sort of boost they could give me. After numerous twists and turns, it seemed like we were back where we started. I think mentally, this was hard on the runners because we could see the seemingly never-ending stretch ahead of us, blazing in the sun. Now I really started to worry, as my little training partner pulled away from me. I had made a slight cushion for time in the first few miles, but they were fading quickly and I knew the rest of the race would be FAR from easy. If I could finish, that is.

Mile 7: 9:41
Mile 8: 9:51
Mile 9: 9:49

Miles 10-12

We finally made it out of the base and into some shade, where a few very kind people turned their hoses and sprinklers on us to offer some sort of relief from the suffocating humidity. More people walked, including me. This was hard, I thought, harder than it should be. Can I make it? I’ve run farther than this before, and it was not a problem. Ok, 2 hours is never going to happen. Let’s just finish. Treat it as a training run, just a weekend LR through northern NJ like you do every Sunday. I don’t care how slow you go, just pick up your legs and MOVE. The faster you go, the faster you’ll be done. The one and only hill came somewhere in here, when my legs were already screaming. I had the upper hand on this one, though... on my long runs I had to cross a very steep bridge from Hoboken to Weehawken, which was not far from my apartment and thus came in the first and last miles of my out-and-back runs. If I could conquer that in mile 12 of my long runs, I could sure as hell do it here. Come on legs, MOVE. You’ve done this before. I passed many, many people on that uphill and cruised on the downhill. I think this was in mile 11, because my split was slightly faster than the others. Then came mile 12, in which I had a mini-panic attack that the finish line would never come. How would I make it another whole mile?

Mile 10: 10:00
Mile 11: 9:42
Mile 12: 10:19

Last 1.2 (per Garmin)

Mile 13 was my slowest. I was sticky, soaked, tired, out of breath, and discouraged. My little training partner man was way ahead of me, probably already drinking his free Mich Ultra at the finish line. What was I thinking? I’ll never be able to do a marathon. All this training and I can’t even run more than a ¼ mile without taking a walk break. Then, I see the sign for 13 miles, and – yes, there it is! – the finish line. I feel a rush of energy. The end is in sight. I checked my watch and realized I could beat 2:05, my new goal established after several walk breaks. I summon what little energy I had left and started my final kick. It hurt. A lot. But I pumped my arms as hard as I could and focused on my breathing. I passed a lot of people. It felt good, so I ran. I crossed the line, and my watch read 2:04:44. Not sub-2, but decent considering how awful I thought I felt.

Mile 13: 10:27
Last 0.2: 1:30 (7:30 min/mile)

I went through the chute and chugged 2 bottles of water and forced a Cytomax down. I couldn’t stomach the popsicles or banana they gave me, all I wanted was a bagel (not to be found anywhere). I found Dave waiting at our pre-determined meeting place (by the letter P), and learned that he had finished in 2:01. Six months earlier, he had run a half in 1:40. I started to feel a little better about my time as I heard this, and many other complaining about the conditions and slow times. We waited for Pete and James, worrying as the time passed (they had not trained nearly enough... I knew they could finish it, but how long would it take?). I drank my free Michelob Ultra, which has never tasted as delicious as it did that very day. Eventually, we found Pete (who finished in 2:21) and James (2:35). We went back to the hotel, quickly showered, and headed to brunch where I devoured a plate of eggs, pancakes, and several mimosas. We wore our medals all day. We had done it!

Below are my stats from the official results page. They said my time was 2:04:50, and I guess 6 seconds doesn’t really make a difference. The 0.1 mile extra showing on my Garmin I’m sure is from weaving in and out between people.

Place Overall: 3,724 out of 16,526
Women: 1,280 out of 9,309
F 18-24: 240 out of 1,090
Age-Grade: 52.74% Place: 3,514

So basically I finished in the top 22%. Not too bad for my first, although there were a lot of walkers that brought down the average pace.

Overall, I had a great time. During the race, I kind of wanted to never run again. But I kept thinking, if this was easy, everyone would do it. Looking back, I’m pretty proud of myself. Initially, I was very disappointed in my time. However, after reading all the posts on RWOL that runners’ times were between 10-15 minutes slower than expected, I feel confident that I raced the best I could and that my training paid off. The feeling that you get when you cross the finish line is inexplicable, and makes all the suffering worthwhile. What's next? :)

"People can’t understand why a man runs. They don’t see any sport in it. Argue it lacks the sight and the thrill of body contact. Yet, the conflict is there, more raw and challenging than any man versus man competition. For in running it is man against himself, the cruelest of all opponents. His adversary lies within him, in his ability, with brain and heart to master himself, his emotions and his pain."
Glenn Cunningham