Race time!
“…I’ll bail if you bail?” We both gave a fake laugh, and both knew it. There was a shared feeling of “F that, it’s time to throw down.”
We were waiting at the start line of Gasparilla Half Marathon in the dark with a light mist and wild winds. It was 5:50AM and had been mid 80s the day before, but about 45 minutes before the race started, a mini monsoon rolled through Tampa and let down a 10 minute torrential downpour bringing 60 degree temperatures and gusty winds.
I needed this race. I needed to know where I stood in terms of my training, my readiness for my half ironman in 3 weeks and for the Boston Marathon in about 6 weeks. I needed to mentally know that I could still overcome feelings of not wanting to run and vicious cycle of sleeping all weekend.
The gun sounded and we were off. It was very windy. The first 3 miles were good, running with a neutral wind onto Davis Island, my usual short bike ride route, but the back side of the Island was right into the wind until about mile 5. From there, it was a straight, probably 4.5 miles, directly down Bayshore. Then turnaround and straight shot to the finish. There was a lot more into the wind on the backside though, which I was not expecting.
I pushed this race pretty hard and could always tell when I hit wind when I looked at my watch and realized I was about 10 seconds off my goal pace. I had been running with a guy for about 6 miles, but as we hit the backside, he started to drop off and I to commit to maintaining pace on my own. When it came down to the final mile, I was kicking as hard as I could. Always fun when you realize you have farther to go than you think… which is probably good because it forced me to hold that pace for longer. I didn’t gel during this race- didn’t need to- but nor did I have any water or Gatorade at any aid station… I was too focused on trying to break the goal time we had set for me.
This was my first race a Wattie Ink Athlete and was rocking my W tats- but they ended up being covered by the sleeves I ended up wearing lol. I got pictures afterward though.
Rock the Wattie Ink W
I would say the “Coach Felipe no-taper taper” worked pretty well. I was pretty stiff on Saturday but I loosened up by Sunday morning. Felipe has had me swimming a lot as I mentioned before and I’ve had to put my faith in him, and rightfully so, that his plan would still have me fit to run. It did.
The winners time was about 1:12:00 I think, so I ended up 48th overall of 4,747 and 9th of 282 in my age group. I did a 1:26:57 and was 13.19 miles by my Garmin.
Medal, Award, and Rock the W tat!
This was not a PR, about 20 seconds slower, but I was very happy with the result and more faith than ever in my coach and myself. Overall it was a great race and it was fun to see a lot of people I know or seen on blogs, out there running.
So thanks for reading and thanks for inspiring me!
Remember to send any podcast questions soon as we are recording this week!
- Do you have a race coming up?
- What’s your go to pre-race meal?
- Favorite post race meal?
Rock The W
