Run to the Rock Half Marathon 2011

A couple weeks ago Taber thought it would be fun to do the Run to the Rock half marathon in Plymouth, MA as a warm up for the big races we've been training for this fall. (I'm running the Applefest Half marathon on Oct 1st and Taber is running the Hartford ING Marathon on October 15th)

We decided to do it very last minute and since we really didn't have time goals or big expectations for the race we stayed up WAY late the night before playing Settlers of Catan with some friends. By the time they left and we got ready for bed it was 1am. Our babysitter was coming at 6am and our alarms were set for 5. Naturally in that 4 hour block of time that I was supposed to sleep, Cam woke up twice and needed to be nursed, Brinley woke up and needed help going potty, and Teya woke up with a bad dream. When my alarm went off at 5am I was seriously so tired I thought I was going to puke. I looked at myself in the mirror with my bloodshot zombie eyes and thought, "Girl, you must be straight up out of your mind if you think you're going to run a half marathon this morning."

And apparently I was straight up out of my mind because I then proceeded to put on my running clothes, lace up my shoes and pack my running bag to head down to Plymouth. 

Our babysitter showed up right on time. I went through meticulous detail describing Camden's routine and then handed her the page of instructions I had typed out just in case she forgot anything (I was a little freaked out since this was my first time leaving Cam for longer than 3 hours and I wasn't sure how he was going to do without his favorite milk lady.)

On our drive down I was still super tired and delirious.  We talked about our game plans. Taber wanted to beat his time from last year (he ran it in 1:49:28) and I wanted to finish it without injuring myself. I figured I would run a 10 minute pace and probably come in around 2 hours and 10 minutes since my 11 miler the week before was exactly a 10 min pace. I was nervous though because of my lack of sleep. 

The nerves continued once we got to the starting line. Basically I got in the port-a-potty line and when I was done I got right back in it. By the time it was my turn I had to go again. I rotated through the line about 3 times before the race started. Taber took a lovely video interview of me doing my nervous pre-race port-a-john ritual which can be seen here.

Finally it was time to go. We took one more little video of ourselves at the starting line, (click here.) and then we were off.

Taber ran the course last year so he prepared me for the hills and told me that the first 6 miles had the worst of them. He said the course was like a roller coaster with lots of ups and downs but virtually no flat running. Knowing what I was up against helped me take it all in stride. I pushed through each hill with steady focus and took advantage of the downhills to pick up speed. My legs felt great and the weather was nice and cool so I decided not to walk through the water stations and just kept pushing ahead. Soon the first 6 miles were behind me along with the worst of the hills.

There was another big climb at mile 10 which almost broke me but I managed to shuffle my way to the top. Then one last hill at mile 11 and I was on the homestretch with just two miles to go. My legs were tired and heavy and the sleepless night was starting to catch up to me but I forced myself to keep moving. I didn't think about anything but putting one foot in front of the other. Left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot, until I was running towards the finish line where Taber was cheering me on.  

I crossed the finish line in 2:00:53. 10 minutes faster than I had expected and less than a minute away from my Applefest goal. I was so shocked I involuntarily started crying. I did not expect to react that way at all but I literally couldn't help it. It's just kind of amazing that our bodies can go from barely being able to run one mile 6 months ago to being able to run an entire half marathon. 

The race was empowering and it gave me the confidence that maybe I can hit my sub 2 hour goal for Applefest in a few weeks. Also Taber dominated and beat last years time by 3 minutes! He finished in 1:46:30, a new PR for him. Total rockstar.

When we got home we were happy to hear that Cam did awesome with the babysitter (even though he refused to take his bottle, he filled up on rice cereal, sweet potatoes and baby puffs : ) The girls did great too and were so excited to see our medals and hear about the race. Teya snapped this lovely picture of us rocking our race t-shirts. 

And then, being the adventure seekers we are, we decided to top off our crazy day by babysitting our friends' 5 kids, (including their 4 month old twins) so they could go on a birthday date. With our kids + theirs we had 8 kids under 8 and 3 of them were babies. If the half marathon didn't wipe us out that sure did! We hit our pillows before 10pm and welcomed our hard earned sleep. ; )