Race Report - the Budget (Almost) Half Marathon that just wasn't meant to be.

Today was my scheduled to be my Budget Half Marathon, run in conjunction with my friend Amanda's half in Illinois. My friend Amanda is FAST. As in, she finished 13.1 in 2:00:25. Yes, folks, an almost 9 min mile pace over a half. But anyway . . . This is the kind of day when both the pluses and minuses of doing a budget race, rather than an actual organized race on a predefined course, reared their heads. I have been very much under the weather for the past few days. As in barely-able-to-stand-up-without-falling-over sick. Last night I took a ton of cold medicine to knock me out so I could sleep.

The ORIGINAL plan for this half was to run it first thing in the morning at work. THAT plan was ruined when Garrett got an AWESOME opportunity to do Ocean Kids, a really great educational program held at UM. So I didn't go to work, and I had Summer starting at 7:30 when they left. But the second plan was that I would go early AT HOME, and be back in time to take Summer so the boys could go. THAT plan was ruined by my copious use of cold meds. I'm pretty sure running 13.1 miles with medicine head just isn't the best idea . . . and really, I'd rather not find out the hard way. Soooooo, I ran when Brad got home. This is the plus side of budget races. Flexibility. And had I decided I was still not feeling well enough to run, I wouldn't have been out the $50-$90 race fee. So, yay for budget races, right?

I made the HORRIBLE mistake of not mapping my course out before hand. In hind sight, I should have known better. My Nike + has been giving me issues as it has been off on distances here lately. I KNEW this, and yet I went out planning to just run based on the distance on it. I just went wherever my little heart desired. BIG mistake. 10 miles (according to it) and 2.5 hours later . . . um, wait, a 15:00 min/mile pace?? REALLY?? I was annoyed, I was tired, and damn it, I did NOT have another 5K in me. I could have made myself run it if I really wanted to. But I was tired, I was BORED, and darn it, 3.1 miles would have sucked. I could have done it, but I would have hated every minute of it. And I probably wouldn't have run again for weeks. So since I was coming off being sick anyway, I cut my losses, turned off my Nike +, and walked the mile home. This is where the boo for budget races comes in, because A: I never would have quit with other people around and B: I would have known, as I do now, that I had actually ran 11.5 miles and I would have found 1.6 WAY more doable than 3.1.

Anyway, I came home, mapped my route, and found it was 11.5, which averaged to a ~12:30 min mile, which is doable for me. I just hope Laura C over at the 500 miles in 2010 blog won't type a huge FAIL next to my half marathon, and instead will descreatly draw a line through it and put Angela's 10-miler instead!! :-)

So, at any rate, I don't consider it a failure. It was a long run, it was fun right up until the end, and I was coming off being sick . . . so no regrets. I AM fighting the urge to throw my Nike + in the trash. A garmin is definitely on my dream big list . . . there was one on sale for $125 on Amazon and I am seriously kicking myself for not buying it. But oh well. Next time I will DEFINITELY map out my route before hand. And hopefully run it at work. Because ocean views and multi-million dollar mansions are way more interesting than the scenery around here. And I can also like running without music for at least part of my run out there, something I haven't been able to pull off at home. Live and learn. And not a penny spent in the process :-)

Oh, official stats . . . or, er, my best guesstimate anyway:
11.5 miles
2:24:46
12:35 pace