Live. Laugh. Love.: Pemberville 5-Miler

Well. We did it!

All 3 of us finished the race.

This was Wes and Taylor's first road race - not an easy start! Way to go, guys!

It was MY first organized race greater than a 5K too.

And I'm just very grateful to my running partners for the motivation to do this.

We met before the race at Amanda's parents home in Pemberville. I LOVE old homes and theirs is SO cute with so much character! Anyway, the start and finish were just down the street from the house and Amanda's mom served a big buffet meal for everyone. How nice! I'd never been to the Pemberville Fair before, but my goodness! Is it ever popular!?!

Casey, Mya, and Stella came out to cheer us all on, along with mom, Craig and Will, and several of Amanda's family members.

Craig and Will arrived just before the race and I got a good luck hug from Will. Sophie spent the evening at my grandma's house.

Alright, so here are the highlights of the evening:

Pro:

The race was early enough (6:30) that there weren't a million bugs out, waiting to fly into our eyes and mouth on those country roads.

Con:

The race was early enough that it was hotter than the blazes (85 degrees at 6:30) and I had to bust my butt to get there on time after work.

Pro:

There was so much support and community present to cheer on the runners. I love to see all the enthusiasm! It's my favorite part. And it was cool to have my family there too.

Pro:

The fire department parked a fire truck strategically at about the 1.5 mile mark and basically set up a full stream shower straight down that runners could run through to cool off. Additionally, about half dozen residents set up their lawn sprinklers to rain onto the road for runners. There were also water cups at about every mile marker.

Con:

Okay. I'm confessing this only because I have no shame... The ole' (postpartum) pelvic floor muscles ain't what they used to be... and I had to try really hard not to pee myself every time one of the sprinklers hit me. LOL :) I'm not quite as bad as the type that have to cross their legs to sneeze, but apparently running in that heat and getting hit with cold water is a little more challenging. Know what I'm sayin'?

Con:

Even with all those sprinklers and water posts, I still had MAJOR cotton mouth where my tongue felt like it was twice the normal size and my lips were sticking to my teeth. Have I painted a picture of radiant beauty enough for you yet?

Pro:

I saw my high school running idol, Cyndi (Bosdorf) Henline, and even stayed ahead of her until just before the two mile marker when she apparently realized she's still super awesome and breezed past me with her sister. But she did pass me a smile of recognition even though we hadn't seen each other in over ten years. So that was cool. I looked her up later and found out she's also run the Columbus Marathon and some half marathon in the last couple years, so she's still rockin' the house.

Con:

I lost my running partners early on. Taylor stayed with me for the first mile, which we reached at a 7:10 pace, at which point he told me he'd "have to let me go". I never saw Wes after the start but I think the heat and the intimidation of all the other runners got to both of them. Neither of them have ever run before and both were past star athletes in their own respective sports, so I'm sure it's tough to see that many avid runners pulling away from you.

Here's Taylor and I just past the first mile. He's wearing the blue shorts and white tee and I'm on his left.

Pro:

Except for the heat, I felt pretty strong. No side stitches or knee pain or legs-feeling-like-dead-weight. I didn't question my ability to finish, I just wanted to do the best I could. This is me coming up to the finishing chute. The D-Tags on our shoe (see above) were our time chips and they even announced our name as we were coming up to the chute.

I ended up crossing the finish at 39:49.

Average mile (according) to my Nike+ chip was 7:36.

I'm very happy with that. :)

Wes ended up finishing at 45:40-something and Taylor at 46:40-something.

But both of them walked a little of it. I'm proud of them for finishing!

Some other amazing things I saw that night:

1) The winner - a man by the name of Julius Kiptoo (thanks Craig for looking that up) - won the event in 23 or 24-something! What? That's less than 5 minute miles. As Amanda said: Go back to the Olympics, jerk! :) You're making us all feel bad about ourselves. Just kidding - it was inspirational.

2) Over 550 runners on the starting line! Wow! Unfortunately this led to a little boxing in at the start and it was difficult getting out there. Note: this is the very reason I'm used to jumping out at too fast a pace and finding my pace later. It's much easier to do that when you have some space. In cross country, this was very common: a huge group on the start all needing to file themselves into a narrow path just a few hundred meters ahead. And in cross country, many of the runners wear spikes... So I didn't mess around leaving myself at risk of being trampled. I always jumped out ahead of the pack.

3) Several cross country teams running in packs. I miss cross country.
4) A mom pushing her sleeping babe in a stroller... and passing me in the 5th mile. I checked my pace at the time and I was running about a 7:35 when she passed me! I told her she was amazing. Wow.

5) A man jogging with his wheelchair-bound companion (child? relative?) in front of him. That just about makes you cry, it's so touching.

Here's our crew after the race:

At this point, Wes and Taylor were doing much better than I was. I was seriously overheated and was not recovering well. I felt very nauseous and thought I would pass out until Amanda kindly brought me a cold washcloth and I got some fruit to spike my blood sugar a bit. Yikes. I took a long while to get back to normal temperature and it felt horrible.

I knew I was partly dehydrated and needed to eat something but eating and drinking made me feel nauseous. So I just sipped my water and sucked on some orange slices, which Will was generously replenishing for me. :)