See Jane Run Half Recap - Part TWO!

To recap - run is going okay, but mentally fatigued and sore....

Mile 10.5-12

Then, it happened.

What I was dreading. 

My hip had been sore the entire race, but it wasn’t bad.  At 10.5, the tightness and pain spread into my stomach, back, and butt, just like it did before my aborted long run – it’s what finally drove me to the doctor back in May.  I gritted my teeth and told Kerrie we had to keep going.   I stopped to stretch a few times.  There were a few f-bombs. 

From there on out it was a grind.  I walked a LOT.  When my hip locks up like that, it’s hard to get any forward momentum from my leg.  Each step feels like I’m pushing into a brick wall. 

We saw Mel & Jayne cruising on ‘back’ route, and they looked AWESOME! 

Right after Mile 12 mile marker, I was telling Kerrie a story about buying my bike…but I was looking at a boat in the water….so I said we bought a boat.  Kerrie replied with ‘ YOU BOUGHT A BOAT?’  I turned and looked at her like WTF are you talking about I bought a bike…not realizing I had said the wrong word.  I was Loooooooosing it.  It was fun. 

My words to Kerrie for the last few miles had been ‘Time’ = time until we walk again and “overall time”.  She was doing a wonderful job of keeping up a one-sided conversation that kept my mind off of the pain I was in.  

Mile 12 offered up a guy offering Gu at the water station.  Little late, but it was my favorite Gu (Chocolate Outrage)  and I’ll never turn down a free Gu.    I think I made his day by going OOOOOO I LOVE CHOCOLATE and snatching it out of his hands.    (What’s funny is he was also offering up Mel & Jayne’s favorite watermelon chomps!)

A group of ladies caught up to us and told us they had been following us for 4 miles and we had to FINISH STRONG.  Off I went.  Like a machine.  We kept together with them until the end. 

Mile 13

Go go go.  Running as much as I can.  Kerrie kept reporting back “12.5!  12.9!  Almost there”.  I didn’t believe her – mainly because her Garmin would chirp about 200 feet before every mile marker on course AND because only the last bit of the course was in the park.  So we were basically out on the roads, with no view of the finish line, until the very end. 

I was hobble-running, walking for a bit, then hobbling forward again.

Kerrie mentioned my kick at the You Go Girl 10k last September – I laughed, saying I wouldn’t have anything at the end.  Well.  I was wrong.  I told her I wanted to hold hands with hands up in the air at the finish line, and we were off.  I sprinted past Zoe (could barely even raise my hand to wave).  I saw Mel, Dave, and Jayne.  I ran to that finish line with everything I had left. 

The tears started about 3 strides from the final mats. 

Now, I’m not good at breathing while running up hills.  While running.  While laughing.  Let alone while crying. 

So add in the combo of sprinting after 13 miles AND trying to sob, and well, had a few scary seconds.  I couldn’t see Mike, and the aid station right after the finish had a bit of a line to get ice.  (I told Kerrie I had to get ice first thing for my hip and ankle).   I think I hugged Kerrie, crying.  A nice boy took my ankle chip.

I turned around, and Mike was on the other side of the barrier with flowers in his hand.  I walked over to him and hugged him, sobbing.   He told me “You did it.  YOU did it!”….which just made me cry even harder.

I stumbled over to the water/food station, and they only had the energy drink they were giving out on course.  NO water.  I had chugged all of my Nuun on course and was thirsty.  No dice.  Out of water.  Kerrie reported they were also out of ice.

At that point, I was like EFF IT, TOO THE CHAMPAGNE. 

Right then, Mel, Jayne, Zoe, and Dave found us.  Cue waterworks again.  Lots of waterworks.  After confirmation there was no water, and while I tried to choke down half of a banana, we headed off to the champagne garden.  The thought of food still made me ill, but I was able to get that banana down. 

sobbing.  there are no words.

 I can't even begin to explain my feelings about this run.  It seems like it went by SO fast.  Not finishing was never an option.  I knew I could do it.  Wasn't sure about my hip, or the sprained ankle...but all was okay.  

I will say that doing the majority of my training alone made me SO VERY appreciate the race-day support I had from Mel, Mike, and especially Kerrie.  I'm such a very blessed and lucky person to have such wonderful friends in my life - friends who take care of me and watch out for me and push for me to do things I never ever ever in a million years thought I could do.

This trip started in the back of my head over a year ago.  In September I confessed to Mel I wanted to run a half.  For the last four and a half months I've run the hills of Downtown Seattle, sweated through afternoon meetings, run through winter storms and thought about this day. 

I did it. I did it.