New Year, New Me(Tiffany): RaceFest Half-Marathon Journey

It Started with a Goal...

Last year I competed in 3 triathlons and some running races. I always have a desire to push myself to the next level and to see what I can do. So I finally realized that I wanted to push myself a little bit further with running and attempt to run the Myrtle Beach Mini Marathon(13.1mi) in Oct of 2011. I had been training for triathlons all summer and was ready for something different and for a new goal to accomplish. How this wonderful goal came about I'm not sure. I really debated about signing up for the event except for the fact that I had never thought about starting to train for the event. So the event came and passed and I was bound and determined that I would make it my goal to run it in 2012, and it still is.

A Little Push-->

In January of this year, Nicole(a fellow trainer at the Charlotte Athletic Club and owner of One2Tri Triathlon Training) developed an endurance training program for an event called RaceFest. It is held in the Southpark area and has the option of a 10k(6.2mi) or half-marathon(13.1mi) race. My friend Anna encouraged me to sign up for the program, my only issue was the cost of the program. I vented to her that the decision to sign up would be a difficult one because my money is really tight, nonetheless she still encouraged me and wanted a partner to talk to about training. I had to cut back my hours at my other job because of school and an internship, and I didn't have a lot of clients at the club because of school. Nicole also encouraged me to sign up for the program but it was still a difficult decision because of the money even though I really wanted to do it. Anna had mentioned to Nicole that people weren't signing up for the program because of the cost so she lowered the price again from $50 to $25(for CAC staff). I was hooked then. I signed up for the program thinking "Hey why not accomplish a goal that I had for later this year earlier than I had planned."

Let the Training Begin

My first day of training didn't go so well because I had the wrong training plan. Unfortunately, this was my fault because I couldn't attend the first group meeting where everyone got their plans. I was later sent the plan for the 10k. After training on the 10k plan for about 2-3 days I finally got the half marathon plan. I started out strong with the program and was very dedicated. I did my training plan to the T. We always had a set number of hours to train for the week for the running program, but I always added extra to it because of swim training with One2Tri and my love for CrossFit. I was really impressed with myself the first two weeks of training and how well I was doing on some of the interval runs on the treadmill. I was a little bummed when I couldn't make some of the group runs, time conflicts. After the first two weeks the training plan was repetitive so I got bored after a while, and because my schedule was so crazy I was always running on the treadmill and doing the long runs on the weekends by myself. Nonetheless I pushed through training no matter how much I wasn't in the mood to do it or how crappy I felt afterwards because I didn't run train as well as I had hoped.

I was really started to get discouraged toward the end of training because I still wasn't doing the run training as well as I wanted to, and I wanted someone to run with me on the weekends to push me a little bit with my pace. Weekend runs were always our long runs, which started out small in the beginning and they progressed throughout the program and as it got closer to race day. I started to wonder if CrossFit had been slowing me down because my run pace on Saturday's keep getting slower and slower. My first long run started out as 10min/mi, and we all know we run slower when not in a race. After a while the started to slowly move toward 10:30min/mi, and that really upset me. I vented to my mom about how I wish I had someone to run with. I was really losing my drive and needed that coaching and encouragement from someone. I felt that I was all alone in my training even though I had Anna to talk to about it. I was really starting to feel alone in my trainig, but no matter what I always went out and ran. My friend Alice and I had planned to run together a couple of times but that never worked out. Two weeks out before the race was a 13 mile run day. So because I was unable to do the group run the day they ran the course and I went and ran it the week after. I geared up with my written notes, my iphone with the directions on it, my ipod and jacket for the start because it was rainy outside. Not too long into my run it started to drizzle, but I was too far away to run around and I needed to run the course so I kept going. The course whined and twined through a lot of neighborhood and it would have been easy to get confused since you came to a lot of the same cross streets. I later found out that the financial analyst that works at the club lives in that area and saw me running out in the rain...can you say dedication!

One Week To Go...

The weekend before was suppose to be a 6-8 mile run. Our coach, Nicole, was having a race that sponsored The Casper Foundation. The Casper Foundation is in honor of her husky Casper who passea away. Casper had epileptic seizures. So me and Anna ran the race one for our weekend run and to show support for a friend and co-worker. I had planned to run the race to see what my pace for a 10k(6.2 mile) was. I had never ran a 10k before. It was also Anna's first race ever, the half-marathon would be her second. She didn't have anyone to pace her, and at first she joked about me running with her. When she asked again, a ball full of nerves, I said yes. I remember my first 5k race and how it was nice to have my friend Meghan there. I probably would have walked a lot more than I did if I didn't have her there with me. So I was glad to do the same thing for Anna. There was also a 5k race going on at the same time, so we would know when we hit the half way point because we would come back out of the woods. It was a trail race, which I think is better training wise so your legs actually get stronger from it. It was freezing when we first started running, so I started running with my gloves and my pull over. I didn't completely warm-up, my hands, until over half way through the race. It had rained the day before so the course was muddy, which didn't surprise me at all. I told Anna that when we got close to the finish line that we were going to sprint, even though she completely insisted that we were not. When we came out of the woods for the finish and passed under the starting banner she wanted to stop and walk, but we were so close I wouldn't let her. We finally turned toward the finish line and we sprinted it in. I was so proud of her! After there was a 1 mile dog jog that Nicole did with her new puppy Navi(Casper's name before it was Casper was Ivan and they just turned Ivan around an made it Navi). And Nicole's sister ran with their other huskey Kina.

...Race Day...

I woke up the morning of the race, and my first thought was, "Why in the HELL did I sign up for this?" I started to get ready, and it started with a breakfast of an english muffin with peanut butter and jelly(not exactly my breakfast of choice) and some chocolate milk. I finished getting ready and like always do my push ups and crunches before leaving the house. My caught me doing this and was baffled because I was getting ready to run 13.1 miles. We had to meet up with the One2Tri racing team at 6:45am so we could get together and warm up, a lot of dynamic stretching. In the car on the way there my mom asked me what my goal was, as well as everyone during the week. My response was, "Finish in under 2 hours and run the whole thing!" I couldn't believed I had signed up to run a half-marathon. One of the spin class instructors Ron, said he would be there to run the first 3 miles with me. Nicole had set the One2Tri endurance group up so that everyone had a partner to run with/pace them throughout the race. I was the only person out of that group who didn't have a pacer so I was going to be pacing myself. When I had told Ron this the week of he said that if he didn't have anything going on he would gladly run with me. I got a hold of him later on in the week and his daughter had a socker game later that morning so he could only run the first 3, which I was just glad to have someone run it with me. He said he would meet me there at 7:15am, the race started at 7:30am. So come 7:15 we needed to start heading down to the starting line. I waited a few more minutes to see if I could find Ron. After about 5 more minutes mom and I headed for the start line. I stood off to the side just in case I saw him.

The run went off, and I was officially starting my first half-marathon. The first mile was completely crowded and it was hard to move, so my pace was completely slower than the rest of the race. I started out without Ron and just figured he didn't show up at all. I started having to dodge around people to get ahead and even that was hard to do; I was running through yards and on sidewalks. We started out on Barclay Downs and a little over half way toward our first turn I spotted Ron on the side of the road looking for me. He had out paced me for the first quarter mile. We ran and talked until mile 3 about all kinds of stuff, and then he took off and wished me good luck along the way. I looked at the people in front of me and decided that I was going to try and stick with then unless I was outpacing them. Along the way there were plenty of people outside their houses cheering us on, which was awesome to see. My race fueling isn't that great so I started to rehydrate around mile 6 since my pace was slower than my 5k races. I hit mile 6 and grabbed some gatorade. I also saw along the way one of my co-workers from the aquatic center. I waved to him and he started cheering me on! It was awesome to hear someone cheer my name and to encourage me.

I it mile 7 and started thinking I'm over halfway there. I knew that there were a couple bad hills along the way but after some of the previous hills my legs were filling strong! I started looking for the mile marker signs every mile. After a little while I started to recognize turns from previously running the course and knew I was getting close to being done. I got to mile 9 and thought I'm 4 miles away from the finish there was no way I was going go to stop running now. I knew that no matter what, even if my pace was really slow, I could finish the whole thing running. I hit mile 10 and thought only 3 more miles, and that was my same though coming into mile 2. Then I thought, if I've already ran 11 miles what's an extra 2 miles. If I can run 11 miles straight I can hold out for 2 more miles. My thoughts were the same for the last mile as well. The last mile had a false hill to it, which is basically a hill whose grade is so low that it doesn't look like a while at all, and so was the finish. I was coming back up Barclay Downs, and had it the last turn only to here my mom yelling for me and taking pictures. As I passed her she yelled at me, "Do you want me to run the rest of the way with you?" I yelled out sure and kept doing and looked for her to catch up. Unfortunately mom couldn't keep up with me once I started to pick up my pace getting closer to the finish line. Once you know the finish line is coming all you do is think about getting there quicker. Mom eventually dropped of and walked the rest of the way to the finish line. As I was about to cross the finish line I saw my friend Jonathan on my right yelling for me. He knew it was a big day for me because it was my first half marathon. He had raced that 10k, which was also apart of RaceFest that morning. He stayed just to watch me finish my goal! He is an amazing friend to stay there and extra hour and half to watch me finish that race. He met me at the finish line and have me a big hug. I saw my friend Alice who had also been training for the race, she finished a little bit before I did. Just a little bit after me, Coach Nicole came across the finish line with the girl she was pacing. I had to stay and watch Anna finish. We had gone through this journey together and was not about to leave before she crossed the finish line. After Anna finished we took a load of pictures, and did our team stretch.

After that race I went home and took a two and half hour nap.