2 hour intervals

If I thought I was hungry the day of my half, I was possibly even more hungry the day after!  I literally ate every 2 hours, if not more. 

9:45 (luckily my job let me sleep in!) – whole wheat waffles topped with syrup & pumpkin cream cheese.

Mmmm cream cheese.  Who says it’s just for bagels?

With a small bit of Voskos Greek yogurt with pumpkin butter swirled in.

11:30 rolled around, and my appetite was high!  I had a small bit of a pesto turkey sandwich at work.  About half of a half…so pretty much a 1/4.

And then made my real lunch at 12:30 – Trader Joe’s black bean and corn enchiladas. 

There was no sour cream in the house, so instead I sprinkled it with feta cheese.  Which was a brilliant idea.

See the Diet Coke there in the background? 

Okay – let’s just pretend you didn’t.

Oh heyyyy.  Whats up.

My, what attractive bling you’re sporting.

I actually wasn’t super hungry come 2:30, but I needed a snack pre-work.

Bagel thin with strawberry jam

and pumpkin cream cheese.

But of course I was starving at work about 4:30.  I snagged some trail mix and chowed it down fast.

At 6:30, we breaked for dinner.  Nothing too appetizing on the hot foods bar, I stuck with a salad.  As my co-workers said “the mother of all salads.”.  Hey – I like ‘em big. (mixed greens, blue cheese, kidney beans, beets, pickles, sunflower seeds, raspberry dressing).

And a ton of rice.  I said I wanted a lot.  And they listened.  (Full size plate, btw)

8:30 rolled around, and 2 hours post-dinner I was hungry…right on schedule!

Apple (2x what’s shown – I already ate a few slices!) with laughing cow cheese, and peanut flour dip.

And around 11:30 I got out of bed after trying to fall asleep on an empty tummy.  It wasn’t working.

Cereal to the rescue!!

 

And then I was out like a light.  I assume we’re talking a burnt out light here.

 

Official race photos are in!  If I had known the color theme of the race was going to be hot pink, I’m not quite sure I would’ve worn it.  I definitely blend in!  not too many great pics – I’m rather small in a lot of them.

Front and center:

Raise the roof!

Right in the middle:

Almost done!  Holding onto my Ghiradelli chocolate as well.  That’s what’s important.

Right under the clock…clapping? haha

So hardcore…she told me to pose this way…not quite sure why.

More natural.  If you call standing stiffly with a fake smile natural.

 

I’m going to be honest here – as I was looking at these today, I wasn’t all too happy.  I said to myself that they weren’t “very flattering” and I found myself getting down on how I looked in these pictures.  (I’ve mentioned how I’ve recently had a good amount of weight gain, and how I’m dealing with that).  I was kind of put off by these.  I knew it wasn’t good of me to think these thoughts, but I couldn’t help it.

Later I realized how incredibly awful I was for critiquing myself the way I did.  These pictures demonstrate me running 13 miles for crying out loud.  And here I was critiquing my body.  These pictures prove the strength and stamina that my body has to offer.  How dare I think poorly of it? 

Just a little something I realized this afternoon…

Tell me one (or more!) thing your proud of your body recently accomplishing

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Will Run for Tiffany’s…and food

I did it!  I ran the farthest I’ve ran in over 1 1/2 years, with no foot pain, and minimal knee pain! 

That’s not to say I’m no in pain now.  My legs are definitely stiff, and my hips are sore!!  A sure sign that I need to work on strengthening my hips more.  But we’ll worry about that tomorrow, or another day

 

My mom and I arrived pretty late to the expo on Saturday.  After standing in line for a while, we finally entered the tent at 4:30.  I definitely encountered a few problems during the trip.

First, I couldn’t find my college ID (remember – I registered with the college student special).  They almost didn’t give me my bib number.  Then I found it – thank goodness.  A few things went wrong the next morning, but I’ll get to that!

Okay, I don’t want to complain here – but the expo was horrible.  I knew it wasn’t a great expo to begin with.  But this year, we literally got our bag (which I love, and am so happy I got a pink one), with 1 mini Luna bar and 1 sample bag of Kashi crackers.  That’s all the expo had to offer.  Oh – we did get a Safeway smoothie sample.  In previous years at least we’d gotten free Jamba Juice, Luna moons, Clif shots..I’ve walked away from the expo with 10 mini bags of Bare Naked granola before!  Oh well, moving on….

The new slogan of the race:

I like it better than the “Run Like a Girl” slogan they’ve had in the past.

Since it was late 5:30, and we were both trying to rest our feet, we didn’t shop around much.  Just went straight for some grub.

Chipotle, because that’s how us cheap women roll.

What a beast.  Bed of lettuce, black beans, rice, chicken, fajita veggies, pico de gallo, and corn salsa.  Guacamole was in a container on the side so I could eat it throughout the salad.  Don’t ever think I don’t get guac at Chipotle.  I don’t disappoint like that.  Plus chips on the side for more carb consumption, of course.

I also had an apple + PB, 2 hot chocolates, and a small chocolate piece back at the hotel that night.

 

The next day went a little something like this:

5:50 – wake up.  Slightly on the late side.  I thought I could handle it.  Wrong.  Turn on coffee machine

6:00 – Go to get cup of coffee and notice there is no coffee in the pot.  However, the machine is sitting in a lake of coffee.  Great.

6:05 – slightly panic.  I need caffeine.  Call front desk to send up new pot and new thing of coffee. 

6:10 – Eat.  Toast bread x2:

6:15 – Make new pot of coffee.  Strong coffee.  To get in maximum caffeine in as little liquid as possible.

6:20 – Can’t find my body glide.  Anywhere.  Research substitutions.  Result to smearing lotion on my arms.  And pray there’s vaseline early on in the race.

6:30 – Chug cooled coffee.

6:40 – Try to go to the bathroom one last time.  Fail.  Oh crap.  No pun intended.

6:50 – make my way onto the street (our hotel was literally next to the start line).  Try to forge my way to the front of the 9:00-9:59 section.  Street is blocked.  Fail.

6:55 – Go the back way.  Get stuck in the back of the 9:59 pacers.  Oh well.

7:00 – Start!

7:05 – waiting…..

7:07 – still waiting….music, cheering, excitement going on…

7:08 – moving!!  I seriously started to tear up with excitement and disbelief that I was there!

7:11 – Cross start line.

Miles 1-3: Stuck behind tons of slower people.  Frustrated.  Averaging 10-11:00 minute miles.  Try to breathe and soak in the experience.  I walked for 45 seconds at mile 2 and mile 3.

Mile 4: Still frustrated at being around slower paced people than I want, I try and realize it’s not the end of the world.  Enjoying the race, and knowing I won’t PR, I stop for a photo op!  Plus a 45 second walk break.

Mile 5: Take vanilla Gu.  I planned to take it at mile 6, but I knew mile 6 is a hill, and I’d rather take it before the hill.  Plus I was already at around 50 minutes.

Mile 6-8: HILLS!!!  I’m not going to lie, I really like hills.  Really.  I love powering up there, and the relief once you get to the top. 

Mile 8: Dodge orange peels.

Mile 10: Downhilllll.  I think this was the downhill mile.  Or it was sometime around now.  I took 2 clif shot blocks (that they handed out on the course) before going downhill.

Mile 11: It wasn’t nearly as packed on the course now, and I was able to pick up my speed.  Only 2 more miles to go, and I was feeling good, so I definitely wanted to pick it up!

Mile 12: Chocolate mile sign!  Chocolate?  Where?  I almost missed the chocolate mile!  Luckily I grabbed one from someone at the last minute and held onto it.  No way was I slowing down to eat chocolate now….sorry!  I looked at my watch and it said 2:02.  I would’ve loved to come in under 2 hours, but that didn’t happen.  So I decided to try and make it under 2:10. 

Mile 12-13: Sprinttttt.  Ready, GO!  Wait…are those rain drops?

Mile 13-13.1: Finish line in sight!  I went at it so hard, I really started to feel nauseous during that last little bit….but….then…finish!!!!!

Official finish time: 2:10:17 (darn so close!)

However, my Garmin told me I went 13.16 miles.  So if I go by that…technically I very well might have ran 13.1 in under 2:10

 

Garmin splits:

• Mile 1: 10:23
• Mile 2: 10:00
• Mile 3: 10:50
• Mile 4: 10:49
• Mile 5: 9:33
• Mile 6: 10:33 <—huge hill the entire mile
• Mile 7: 10:57
• Mile 8: 9:10 <— uphill
• Mile 9: 10:33 <—uphill…again
• Mile 10: 9:33
• Mile 11: 9:17
• Mile 12: 9:14
• Mile 13: 8:09 (told you I still had it left in me )
• Mile 13-13.1: 7:34

Elevation chart (if interested):

(Since this is for the full marathon, there actually was no big incline at the end of the half)

Oh….why hello.

(Source)

Thanks for my Tiffany’s Mr. Fireman!

This is by far my favorite out of all the years I’ve done it.  My other 2:

I can’t find the one from 2006 when I walked the half, but it wasn’t too pretty.  It honestly reminded me of a bottle cap.

One thing I have noticed about these necklaces is that they tarnish and get very dinged up looking very fast.  The background behind the runners on my marathon one (on the right) tarnished within days. 

I love my mom’s from when she walked the full in 2005.  Any runner would want this one.:

(Source)

Sadly, I don’t have that one.  I’m jealous.

Anyways…back to race day.  I got my goodies, and went to stand in line to get my picture taken.  I’ve never done this before, and I also had a good 1 1/2 hours to wait around for my mom to finish.  Standing in line is where I ran into this lady!  She was standing right behind me, and tapped me on the back, recognizing me from the blog.  Congrats Hillary on your PR!!

I ate a banana, drank a few sips of chocolate milk, and some Gatorade recover while waiting.

After some photography posing, I headed to the medical tent to ice my knees and foot.

It was freeeezing, by the way, and it had started pouring while I was in the tent.  I immediately headed to the stretching tent where I foam rolled, and stretched.  Hence the name – stretching tent.

Ate a protein Luna bar (peanut butter flavor.  Not my fave.  But I was hungry!!).

Then stood in line in the rain for a massage.  Mmm felt nice.

Finally I met up with my mom, where we caught up for 5 minutes.  Then I left her to catch the shuttle back to our hotel.  She waited for my dad who was picking her up and they were leaving straight for Sacramento (another story).

I then stood in line for an hour waiting for the bus.  In the freezing rain.  Crazy crazy cold!! 

On the bus, I ate another banana – yes 3 bananas all before 1:00.  Call me crazy.  Or call me a runner.

 

Back at my hotel, I showered and got so fresh and so clean in the locker rooms.  Then hauled my suitcase down to the shopping mall area, where I sat and ate some grub before catching BART (basically a subway that runs around the bay area).

Thank goodness I decided to go for this Thai place in the food court because you will never guess what they had –

Pumpkin curry chicken.  Oh yes.  Yes they did.

I also got garlic pepper chicken, which was bomb.

Now you see it.

Now you don’t.

HUGE plate, by the way.

It was 2:00 pm.  I figured this would hold me over a good 4 hours right?

I figured wrong.

I was hungry when I got home at 3:50.  Where I grabbed handfuls of this bad boy:

On my way out of town, I had a snack dinner?  It was 5:45.

So this beast weighed in at 15.0 on the scale.  In my head, I thought it was 1.5 pounds.  I was shocked.  But somewhat proud. 

Heck yes I just got myself a 1.5 pound yogurt.

Is it sad I was slightly disappointed when I realized it was only 15 ounces?  Still a beast of a yogurt though.

Pumpkin pie + vanilla wafer flavors.

I knew I would get hungry on the road, and packed a snack dinner part 2.

Frosting?

No no.  Just awfully photographed cottage cheese + nectarine.  In a frosting container.

And once back at…home?…school?  (I really don’t know what to call this place anymore). I had a bowl mug of cereal.

Well. Guess I can say I got my fiber in for the day.

I like how most people have post-celebratory big race dinners.  And I had froyo, cottage cheese, and cereal.  Gotta love it.

So, that was my day, race, and eats in a nutshell rather long post.

All in all, I felt awesome during the race.  My knees were a bit achy.  But not bad at all.  I do wish I could have kept up a faster pace, but I just got stuck.  Sometimes I seriously felt like I could have been walking faster than I was running.  But I knew from the beginning I wouldn’t beat my PR of 1:53.  I was just happy to be out there! 

I also only walked about 4-5 times for 30 seconds during the entire race.  I’m not lying when I said I actually forgot to walk.  During the mile 6-9 hilly sequence, I was so caught up in the hills that I forgot to take walk breaks.  It was all fine in the end – I really only started doing long runs with walk breaks to ease back into running.  But I felt good!  Funny enough, one of my biggest regrets is not getting more pictures.  It was only me and my mom with an Iphone camera, so we obviously didn’t take many!

 

But now…I can’t wait for my next race!!  Thank you for all your guys’ support and encouragement throughout my injury and training.  You guys are the best

And stay tuned for what I ate the day after my half

Did you race this weekend?  How’d you do?  Brag your story away!!

What do you “Run to be?”

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