As you might know, I've been training to run the Heart Mini in Cincinnati's 15k. This is a 9.3 mile run in very hilly Cincinnati. My training for this brought me up to 7 miles, but that was all on the treadmill and without any hills or incline. Needless to say, I was nervous about running on hills during the actual run.
The timing of the run wasn't ideal either, being that it was the day after St. Patrick's Day! But I still managed to drink 4 or 5 beers on Saturday. That's probably not the best pre-race beverage to drink. Ha.. But I did hydrate as well so that helped out, and finished drinking around 4pm.
The run started at 7:45am in Cincinnati on Sunday, and I was staying at my sister's who lives 50 minutes away. So we woke up early and were aiming to get down there around 7:05 or so and probably got there around 7:10 - 7:15. Sadly, it was at that time that I realized that I didn't bring the Gu or sports beans that I had planned on carrying, for that needed boost midway through the race.
As we walked to the start of the race, I also realized that I did absolutely 0 minutes of stretching! Normally I would love to get in a stretch, especially since my calves sometimes are tight when I start to run and I've had a lot of issues with shin splints over the years. But nevertheless, we started walking to the starting line until we crossed and the crowd spread out ahead of us. It was also at this time that I realized that I really should've used the restroom! Man, I did not plan enough for this I guess. Thinking that I might be able to make it through the race, I skipped a couple of port-a-johns but around the 1.5 marker, I really had to stop and wait in a small line. This was not the best start! It was also about this time (probably a little before) that I realized that for some reason, my Garmin had stopped tracking me. I am not quite sure what had happened, but I restarted the Garmin and it worked after that. After the emergency bathroom break, I sprinted to catch up with my friends which were walking up the hill so I could catch up.
From then on, it did get easier. We pushed up the hills and only stopped to take in fluids. I'm not quite good enough to run and drink. My friends both had race belts and my friend was nice enough to give me shots of Gatorade when I was in need. I definitely need to look into getting one of those belts as I plan to run further than 9 miles, and it would probably help out. There were many hills, but the worst was probably at mile 6. It was a street called Torrence Pkwy and was just a huge hill. But we were actually passing many people. It felt really good and inspired me to finish the race strong. After that hill, my friends kicked it up a notch and I had trouble keeping up but I did manage. There was one more crazy hill at the very end that I had forgotten about, but I kept telling myself that I was almost finished and too close to stop at that point.
It was definitely a great experience. The bands playing as we ran were awesome, the run was well organized and I feel ready to tackle a half marathon in the coming up months! I really want to thank my sister for waking up early to come down and cheer me on. Waking up crazy early on a Sunday after St. Patrick's Day must've been hard when you aren't actually running the race yourself. So thank you sooo much! Also, thank you Christa and Renee for making it an awesome run (and providing needed nourishment and encouragement during the run!) And a special thank you to my girlfriend Kristin who showed awesome support during my training and everyone that had faith and supported during the last couple of months!
Thanks for all of the support!
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