My very awesome husband offered to stay up in order to take my running laundry out if the washer and put it in the dryer. He even took it from the dryer and set the laundry basket of clean clothes in the bathroom since he didn't know what I was planning on wearing. Lack of planning on my part won him some extra and major brownie points.
I picked my sister up at 4:45am and we made our way to Hollywood. We thought we had planned ahead and had given ourselves plenty of time to find parking and make our way to the start line. Unfortunately, the parking structure they had advised would be open for our use that morning was blocked off. There were so many people looking for parking and no one really directing anyone where to go. We eventually found a parking lot and decided it was our best option, even though we'd have to walk a bit to the start, walk a lot farther after finishing, and we weren't quite sure we'd come back to a car with a ticket.
Major frustration.
I really do try to keep my frustration levels low at races, knowing that things happen, people make mistakes and that it is a learning process. In the grand scheme of things, a race not starting on time or running out of water is low on my list of things to worry about. However, this is the third year of this race and my sister and I both have a legacy status in this race. I'm not too sure we'll be coming back next year. Three years and three unorganized events later...
The race started about 15 minutes late an since we were in the second to last corral it meant we started 15 minutes after that. We started strong and kept a pretty good pace for the first half of the race. But the halfway point got us both. Rachel couldn't feel her right foot and on top of that felt like her feet were burning (later to be discovered the cause were two blisters). Her shins were also feeling tight and causing pain. My right knee was not happy and I was in quite a bit of pain no matter if I walked or ran. We decided to finish the race walking, although I strongly contemplated stopping at the first aid tent and not finishing.
At that point I think it was more mental than physical though, so we walked 6.5 miles to the finish with occasional bursts of running when there was more of a downhill.
It wasn't our best finishing time, but it wasn't our worst. It really was about finishing, and we did.
On top of the 13.1 miles we had just finished for a medal, we then had to walk an extra 1.42 miles (partly uphill) to the car. No ticket though!!
Another half is done. 4 out of 14 finished and the next one is in 3 weeks. I really like always being in training mode. It gives me something to work towards and keeps me more focused than if I was just running for pleasure.
Good thing I enjoy it!
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