Shipyard Old Port Half-Marathon

So we’re back with another half under our belts!

Saturday morning, my mom and I went for our last 3 mile run before making the drive up to Portland, Maine to pick up our race bibs and t-shirts. We’ve been looking forward to this race for a long time, so we were pretty darn excited. We have family friends (and former neighbors) who moved up to Maine so our plan was to spend the night at their house before making the drive into Portland for the race in the morning. So, we got to catch up and visit with them AND run a race – you can’t beat that for a good time!

I had made numerous lists to make sure we wouldn’t forget any valuable supplies at home, and thankfully, we remembered everything- iPods, GPS watch, gels, Clif bars, and of course, our sneakers (I was really paranoid about forgetting these!)

Our extensive supply of GU gels and energy chews!

After picking up our bibs at a local running store, we had lunch in Portland, putting some of the finishing touches on our carbo-loading plan. I had a delicious pastrami sandwich and my mom had a black bean and chicken burrito. And then, of course, we had to top it all off with some of the best gelato I’ve ever had. Pure perfection!

We explored some of the cute, local shops and then met up with our friends before heading back to their house to relax and cook up some dinner- homemade lobster rolls, potato salad,  corn on the cob and a little green salad (my mom and I tried to go a bit light on the vegetables since it’s not a great idea to eat too much fiber the night before a race!).

Dinner before the race!

All in all, I think my mom and I did a good job maximizing our carb intake and hydrating in the days leading up to the race. This was only my 3rd half-marathon (#4 for my mom), and we’re still experimenting a bit with nutrition and trying to find out what works best for us.

Race Day Recap~

The alarm went off very early on Sunday- 5 AM! We had to get ready, eat our breakfast (a White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Clif Bar for me and a PowerBar for my mom), and grab our travel mugs of coffee for the drive into Portland.

My mom drove, I took pictures!

Thankfully, we had zero navigational issues getting into Portland and found parking easily. Lots of runners were milling around, and it suddenly felt very real- we were going to run 13.1 miles!!

We dropped off our supplies at the bag drop area, and went outside to warm up. The sun was starting to come out in full-force, and it was already beginning to feel warm- a little foreshadowing of the race we were in for!

Before we knew it, it was time. We lined up in the starting chute around the 9:30 min/mile pace group. I was hoping to run roughly this pace through the first 5 miles, before increasing my speed to between 8:30 and 9 min/mile for the last chunk of the race. This strategy has worked well for me in the past, so I thought it could be done. I was a little too ambitious.

The vibe was cheerful and excited, and everyone was ready to go. The gun went off, and we were on our way! Everyone was packed together through the first 2 or 3 miles and in the excitement, I think our 9:30 min/mile group was doing a pace closer to 9 min/mile. But me and my mom felt good, so I wasn’t super worried.

The only problem was that early on, we both realized we were going to have to stop and use a porta-potty. This was frustrating, but I didn’t think it would be that big of a deal. Around the mile 5 marker, we stopped and had to wait in line for the 1 porta-potty that was stationed next to the water-stop. This probably added a solid 4 to 5 minutes onto our time, which made me anxious. We had been making great time up to that point! Oh well, I thought. You gotta do what you gotta do.

After the little pit stop, I felt better, and ran a bit like a crazy person to make up for the lost time. I’m not sure, but I was probably doing around an 8 min/mile pace at this point. I caught back up with my mom, and she told me to run ahead- she needed to go a bit slower.

So I continued on by myself, immediately tackling an intimidatingly steep hill. I was proud of myself for running up it (tons of runners were walking), but when I got to the top, I was out of breath, and needed to walk a little to recover. The worst of the hills were done by this point, but now the heat was ratcheting up. It was well into the 80s with high humidity- basically, anti-running weather.

By mile 10, I was dying. In my previous 2 half-marathons, I had barely walked at all, but this was a whole different story. I would tell myself I only had 3.1 more miles to go- I could easily run that, right?! Wrong. I tried to limit my walking breaks to around 50-100 feet before running again, and this worked fairly well. I was a little bummed that my aggressive pace had fallen off so sharply, but eventually, it just became about finishing. I passed a biker who was being attended to by paramedics- he was lying down in a shady spot with an IV in his arm! My mom told me later that when she passed, he was being put on a stretcher to be taken to the hospital. And he wasn’t the only one- 5 runners had to be taken to the hospital to be treated for heat exhaustion!

I felt like crap and started wondering if I was going to throw up and/or collapse. Not an awesome mindset to run the last 3 miles of a half-marathon with…

FINALLY, I passed the marker for mile 13, and I told myself to limp on just a little bit farther. By this point, I had 2 giant blisters- one on each big toe- that throbbed painfully with every step. Let me tell you, that last tenth of a mile felt like the longest distance in the world. I finally crossed the finish line at 2 hours, 11 minutes (about 10 minutes off my PR). I was handed a cold, soaking wet towel, which I draped over my shoulders and I hobbled away to get some water.

I went back to the finish line, and cheered for my mom as she crossed the finish line soon after at 2 hours, 19 minutes. We had both finished without any serious bodily harm, and that was what mattered.

Post Race~

After drinking tons of water and allowing our stomachs to settle a bit, my mom and I tried some of the free food they had for us runners. We tried the strawberry-flavored Yasso frozen Greek Yogurt Bars- SO GOOD! And just what we needed after that crazy run in the heat. We purchased a little race merchandise, and headed out to a nearby Starbucks for some post-run refueling.

It felt good to finally sit down and change into flip-flops

Happy to be finished!

We chatted as we walked, and I heard about my mom’s experience of the half- not good. Like me, she had to walk WAY MORE than usual, and also felt pretty darn horrible. But as we talked about it, we realized there was really nothing we could have done different. We had trained for it, and were definitely fit enough to run the distance. The heat and almost-complete lack of shade really messed with us. We’d also had to stop to use the porta-potty which added time. But, you can’t run a PR every single race. For the conditions, we had actually done pretty well.

We proceeded to reward ourselves with some mini (and very melty) Snickers bars with our Starbucks. My mom got an iced coffee and I indulged in a coffee light frappucino with extra coffee. Yummmmmmmm.

Perfect post half-marathon treat!

My coffee frappucino!

Me+Snickers+Starbucks = Happiness!

So, it wasn’t our fastest race, but it certainly wasn’t a failure. We triumphed over the crazy conditions and as my blisters heal (and my mom’s toenails grow back!), we’ll soon be ready for our next adventure! I CAN’T WAIT!

*Note: pictures of the race are supposed to be uploaded to the Old Port Half-Marathon facebook page, so I will add some of those when they are finally up!

Adventures in Maine!

In less than a week, my mom and I will be making the journey up to Maine once again, this time for the Old Shipyard Half-Marathon! We are getting very excited. 

BUT, before that happens, I wanted to post a little update on the mini vacation my mom and I just took up to Booth Bay, Maine. The weather really did not cooperate with us. AT ALL. It was sunny for, oh, the first 30-45 minutes we were there? After that, solid rain, clouds, and fog for the remainder of the stay…

Despite the rain and chill, we managed to have quite a few adventures. We started our trip off with a kayaking tour down the Sheepscot River. My mom and I shared a tandem kayak, as we’re both newbies when it comes to kayaking.

(I snapped this picture of her from the front!) Even though it rained on us roughly the whole time we were kayaking, it was still pretty cool- we got to see a bunch of seals, and we stopped off at a little island for some much-needed snacks before making the return trip. By the time we finally got back, our hands were a wee bit water-logged-

Between the rain and the dropping temperatures, we were freezing and starving by the time we made it back to our B&B, where we grabbed fresh coffee and some homemade oatmeal raisin cookies. I don’t even like raisins, but these tasted like the best cookies ever. 

After grabbing a delicious dinner (my mom and I shared an order of pasta with lobster and a vegetable medley), we settled into our cozy room to watch a little trashy TV!

The next day, it was equally cold and drizzly, and we realized we hadn’t packed warm raincoats. So, off we went to shop with an umbrella borrowed from the bed and breakfast. Luckily, one of the first stores we went into had some very nice jackets, and both me and my mom ended up getting one. (Here’s my mom posing in her new jacket with the umbrella, which coincidentally matched!)

While the weather was horrible, our stay at the bed and breakfast was really, really nice. You could tell that the views would be wonderful on a clear, sunny day (not that we had any of those!)

The breakfasts the B&B served were also amazing. The first day, we had fluffy, scrambled eggs on a biscuit with a red pepper hollandaise sauce- DELICIOUS!! And the breakfast on our last morning was equally amazing- vanilla french toast drizzled with raspberry and chocolate sauce. Talk about starting the day off right!

Scrambled eggs with red pepper hollandaise on a fresh biscuit!

Vanilla french toast drizzled with chocolate and raspberry!

The last day we were bummed about having to head home in the afternoon, but we tried to make the most of our morning (even though, you guessed it – it was a cloudy, cool day)! We spent the last few hours of our trip visiting the Maine Botanical Gardens, which are apparently ranked as some of the most beautiful gardens in the US. Countless people had told us that we had to see the gardens, and they were right!  They really were gorgeous, and there was even a cute garden for little kids (and me )  to play around in.

Then, it was time to head home. *tear… Overall though, it really was a great, adventure-packed vacation, and we sure didn’t let the weather get in the way of our fun!

I can’t wait to get back up to Maine this weekend for a lil’ half-marathon fun!

 

 

 

Last Long Run!

So, my mom and I did our long run this morning – minus the ice cream!

We kept in mind the lessons we learned from our struggle of a run from last week, and did it the right way this time.  We got up nice and early and were out the door by 7 am (instead of running during the hottest part of the day, as we did last week). This made things 100% better. There was even a nice breeze!

Our route was very quiet. A few other runners were out, but it seemed like most people were sleeping in this Saturday morning. That was fine, my mom and I had the sidewalk all to ourselves!

Of course, it was a 10 mile run. No matter how much better prepared we were, it was still hard! The toughest part were some seriously killer hills that had my mom asking me if it would be ok if she dropped “the F-Bomb”. I said it was. 

My thoughts as I ran up those hills:

But luckily, my mom and I both lived! We only paused once to have a gel around mile 4. They were vanilla flavored- yum! The best part though, was when we finished, and I realized that was the last really long run we had to do before the Shipyard Half on 7/14! Next week’s a tapering week, so we’ll be taking it a little easier.

Anyways, I’m glad we got that hard work out of the way because IT’S TIME FOR A LITTLE VACATION! That’s right, my mom and I are taking a mini-trip up to Maine tomorrow, and I am very excited. We’re going to be kayaking, exploring some gorgeous trails, and (obviously) eating tons of seafood! I looooooove seafood; it has to be one of the best things about the summer, and this is going to be authentic, Maine seafood. That ranks up there with cheesecake, greek yogurt and other extremely awesome things in my book. Heck, maybe we’ll even squeeze in a run in between eating lobsters.

See you in a few days!

Beginning The Adventure

Let me preface this by saying my mother and I might be crazy. Maybe we’ve both experienced one too many endorphin-fueled runners’ highs, and the chemistry in our brains has been permanently affected. There has to be an explanation, right? I can barely put this plan into words, but here it goes: we want to run a half-marathon in every state of the US.

Luckily, we have 2 down! Only 48 more to go! Massachusetts and Maine can both be crossed off the list. Maine is actually going to be a repeat, since my mom and I ran the Shipyard Old Port Half-Marathon in Portland last summer, and we’re going to run it again this year since we had so much fun the first time! The race after-party has LOTS of free food, which I have zero guilt about indulging in after having run 13.1 miles.

The other race we have on our calendar is the Monadnock Half-Marathon in New Hampshire in August (yay for state #3!). The description of this course makes it sound tough- lots of hills throughout the course. My mom and I almost chickened out from signing up for this one, but then decided to just go for it. We certainly won’t be looking for any PR’s on the course though!

Training has begun, courtesy of a half-marathon plan from Runner’s World magazine. My first few runs after coming home from college were rough. I was getting over a sinus infection and had not been able to squeeze many runs in between studying for exams, so it was really discouraging how hard a little, itty-bitty 3-mile run felt. But, I’m happy to say the plan has been working like a charm! My mom and I did an 8-mile long run yesterday, and I felt pretty good throughout. Today is a rest day for the legs, and tomorrow we’ll be doing a 5k! I absolutely love the camaraderie of racing, so I’m very excited for this.

Brady and Keeper (our dogs) helped us cool off after our 8 mile run!