I’m a four-time half marathoner!  I’m still kind of in shock that I actually finished this race last weekend.  As you may have noticed by the fact that the marathon training posts disappeared, I have not been running as much as usual.  Between a lot of crime in my old neighborhood – which made me nervous about running there – plus moving, work deadlines, and being under the weather for awhile, I was just not able to train.  I knew that if I did line up for the Biggest Loser half marathon, it would be my slowest yet.  Still, I wanted to at least try.

I almost changed my mind on race morning, though, when I woke up to this forecast. Ewwwwwww.  But I decided to mom up and go for it anyway.  I dug through one of my partially unpacked boxes for a pair of capris that – hopefully – wouldn’t chafe, wrapped my iPhone in a plastic baggie, and steeled myself for 13.1 wet miles.

The start line was dreary with a few drizzles, but not too bad.  (It looks worse than it is because at this point I still had my phone in a plastic baggie and was attempting to take pictures through the plastic.)  You can’t see it because this picture is unfortunately so blurry, but up at the start, motivating the crowd, were Dan and Jackie Evans!  (They’re former Biggest Loser contestants, from Season 5, and they now travel around as the face of the Biggest Loser race series.  I knew they would be there, because they go to every race, but I was still super excited.)

Here I am all blurry and nervous at the start line.  I ran with my Camelbak to make sure I stayed hydrated – after the Fifty Yard Finish aid stations ran out of water I didn’t want to take any risks.  I figured that a huge, well-organized race series would have adequate supplies, especially one like the Biggest Loser race, which markets itself to people of all sorts of abilities and expects all paces, but still, better safe than sorry.

The race started out at Buffalo’s Canalside area and headed out along the waterfront to a turnaround just before mile 1.  It was breezy down by the water – but not raining.  After the waterfront, we headed up Delaware Avenue (uphill, the wrong way!) all the way to Delaware Park.  I ran for a little while with one of the pacers, but she wanted to chat while we ran and I couldn’t keep that up, so I dropped back.  I was disappointed that I couldn’t keep up with her, but I reminded myself that the only goal was to finish this race safely and let the pacer go.  At one point – around Gates Circle – a guy asked me if I thought we were coming to the turnaround soon.  I groaned, “Not even close.”  I ran these roads a lot over the past year and I knew just how far we were from the park, where the map had us turning around.  I saw him a few miles later and he grunted, “Good call on the not-even-close.”  I know, dude.  I know.

We did finally make it, though!  As has become my little tradition, I snapped a picture at the first mile marker past the halfway point.  Mile 7, my old friend, it’s great to see you!

We headed out of the park and back down Delaware Avenue.  I wasn’t too excited about this section, because (1) it’s hillier than you expect Delaware to be, going in that direction – it’s all supposed to be downhill, where are these uphills coming from?! and (2) I knew we were heading for a detour along Lincoln and Chapin Parkways before we settled into the Delaware downhill stretch to the finish line.  I started to really struggle, mentally, at this point.  I knew how far we were from the finish line and I just didn’t want to be there anymore.  I was tired, had fallen well behind the pace I usually keep, breathing was tough, and my hips were starting to ache.  I kept thinking about how nice it would be to just sit down on the side of the road and quit.  Finally, around mile 9, something had to give.  I was walking more than I was running and realized that I had already finished by this time in my last half marathon.  So I decided to run Galloway-style for the rest of the race: four minutes on, one minute off.  I had to run for those four minutes (no matter how slowly) and then I could walk.

The fancy houses on Rumsey, Lincoln and Chapin are always a nice distraction.  Eventually we made it back to Delaware and the road started sloping downhill.  Hurray!  It was basically just the last few miles of the Turkey Trot now (more or less) – I knew I could do that.  Galloway running was helping – I was staring at my phone’s clock half the time, but I was moving a lot faster once I started the 4:1 ratio, and feeling better (both physically and mentally) too.

Howdy, mile 10!  Just a 5K left now!

 

I fueled with cherry blossom Honey Stingers (my fuel of choice since the 2011 Cherry Blossom 10 Miler) around mile 7 and salted caramel GU (first time I’d tried this flavor of GU, and WOW was it delicious) just after mile 10.  At mile 11, a volunteer was handing out strawberry banana GU and I figured, why not?  It was pretty good, but not as good as the flavor I’d brought with me.

Before I knew it, I was following signs to the finish line!

Here we goooooooooo!  Finishing my fourth half marathon!  And yep, I totally high-fived Pam from Season 14 as I crossed the finish line.  That was pretty cool.

Hard-earned new bling.

Final time: 3:02:01.  I struggled with this race.  It was hard to keep any kind of a consistent pace, between not having been able to train and the humidity.  Breathing was a challenge and I definitely walked a lot more than I wanted to walk.  Still, I was glad that I got out there and finished it.  Not every race can be a PR, or even a good day.  I’m proud of myself for sticking with it and finishing, as hard as it was and as much as I really, really wanted to quit multiple times during the race.  13.1 miles is no joke!