Half baked and half assed - Super Jock 'N Jill 1/2 Marathon - Race Report

Race: Super Jock 'n Jill 1/1 Marathon
Location: Woodinville, WA (wine country!)
Biggest Challenge: Going the distance without being the last person to finish
Time: 2:14:15
Pace: 10:06
Ranking:
- Overall - 915/1204
- Gender - 507/583
- Male age 30-39 - 182/200
Date: 9/7/09

I started 2009 with a list of four goals, two health related and two finance related. I'm glad to say that after finishing the super jock 'n jill half marathon I've taken care of both of my health goals (half marathon, lose 30 pounds). The finance ones... eh, not so much. This is a blog about running though, so unless I've got running-related finance to talk about, we'll just steer clear of that topic.

Let's back up a couple of days.

I started my carbo-loading on Friday with 1.25 pounds of food for lunch. This included a little protein in the form of chicken, but most of that was taken up by the miracle of macaroni and cheese and some great pasta salad. After work I went and slammed down a few Belgian beers, which had to have some carbs in them somewhere, and a beautiful burger. The bun should take care of a few more carbs.

Saturday was a day of rest, relaxation and a four mile run. It's probably not the smartest thing to run two days before your first half marathon, but I did and I'm not going to apologize for it. Besides, it was a pretty damn easy run. This discussion is feeling familiar. I think I may have already blogged about it.

Sunday.... ahhhhh, I love the Sunday of a three day weekend. It's all the fun of a weekend day with none of that annoying I-have-to-go-back-to-work-tomorrow bullshit. Sunday should have been a day of rest, but it was a day of activity. There was much craigslisting (should be a verb if it isn't already) and organizing around the house. The highlight of the day was the trip to the Original Pancake House where I downed a stack of sourdough flapjacks, an egg, two thick pieces of bacon, a slice of wheat toast and half a serving of potatoes. The only reason I'm sharing the menu with you is so that I can work in my favorite line of the day. "I'm eating like an American today because tomorrow I'm going to run like a Kenyan." Look at that list of foods that I've eaten over the past few days. Carbo-loading complete.

Race day came early at 7am. I did a quick cold shower rinse, then donned the racing gear of the day. According to the lovely weather app on my iPhone it was a balmy 53* outside, that meant the shorts were out and the tights were back, baby! I try to be smart when possible (usually it's not), so I reasoned that I could either put on the tights, long sleeve wicking shirt and another sweat-optimized overshirt OR I could put on a pair of running shorts and a short-sleeved wicking shirt. One results in me being reasonably warm while waiting for the start, the other results in a lot of energy wasted shivering. I chose option A. Pre-race fuel was a banana and a cup of Cheerios. Then we were OFF, to hunt down Red Hook Brewery (never actually saw it), a parking place, and the starting line.

MASSIVE line to pick up my bib and timing chip. They picked an interesting way of doling the race packets out. Rather than have everything sorted by name, you had to talk to one of the 3 volunteers with the list and they told you your bib number. Then you went and talked to one of the dozen volunteers with the packets who hunted your packet down. It was surprisingly fast. I'm confused. At first glance it seems incredibly inefficient, but it worked almost like magic. This was the biggest organizational problem of the race, and as you can see it wasn't a problem at all. Along with my packet I got a fantastic, red, long-sleeved, wicking race shirt. Now here's a dilemma: take the shirt back to the car OR put the shirt on and go with it. I put the shirt on. Let's count... that's 1, 2, 3 shirts I was wearing. There was no problem with me being plenty warm out there. I think not removing the bottom shirt actually ended up being a mistake later, but not because I got too hot.

I don't remember a lot of stuff from each individual mile, but there were some things that stood out. I'll point out some highlights:

Lisa and I ran the first two miles together before she split off to complete the 4-mile run. It was drizzling a bit and cold but we had fun anyway. I made a joke about not exceeding the 45mph speed limit on the road we were on. She gave me a courtesy chuckle, which is nice of her. I didn't see it, but Lisa assures me that some other girl running nearby overheard and was entertained by my humorous stylings. I appreciate that. People laughing either with me or at me pleases me.

I saw my first minimalist runner in the wild. I've read about them, but I didn't expect to actually see one. I don't know if he was doing the 4-mile or the half. I'd like to believe that he was crazy enough to do the half. This guy was running in flip flops! FLIP FLOPS! What part of that doesn't sound crazy? Running in flip flops should only be done from the grill to the fridge to replenish your beer. Running 4-13 miles in flip flops is just... not... right.

There is some really nice scenery over there in Woodinville. I've been there a couple of times, but usually when I'm seeing it it's through a red-wine haze on a party bus going from winery to winery. Good times. This time I was seeing it 100% sober and I was impressed. A lot of the run was on the Sammamish River Trail. It's a really nice tree-covered trail that goes by and over the river. I was crossing over once and the view was so nice I wished that I had brought a camera.

GU does not taste good. It doesn't taste horrible, but it's not good. Still, it provided wonderful energy at just the point that I needed it. Hmm, I wish they'd had just one more GU stand at around mile 10. I could have used a little energy boost to finish that last 5k.

Starting in mile 6, the route planner's meds must have run out because our path got all kinds of twisty and crazy through Bothell. I started seeing other runners coming back toward me and I was sure that there was a turnaround just around the corner. Then I noticed that runners I was seeing were running much, MUCH faster than I do and that they had zero body fat. It turns out they were about four miles ahead of me.

Someone put a stupid hill right at the beginning of mile 7. Race planners, if you're going to put a hill on your course, please put it somewhere in miles 1-3. Anything after that is just torturing your customers.

I had this woman in gray shorts that I was following for a long time. We had crossed the river at the same time in mile 5. At one point I noticed that either her shorts were very sheer, or the way they stretched just made them look that way. I tried to use her as my pacer, but she got away from me at around mile 10. She just disappeared. She must have been pacing herself to have an explosion of speed once we got to 5k left. It's either that or I slowed down a lot. I'll go with the speed explosion idea.

Telling yourself you've only got a 5k left and when was the last time you couldn't do a 5k only goes so far. This is where I needed some more GU.

Glide is an amazing thing, but either I didn't put it on right or thick enough or all the rain and sweat washed it away. Consequently, I have the least debilitating but most ridiculous of running injuries: nipple chafing. My nipples were chafed so much that nine hours later they have scabs (on my freaking nipples!) and they still hurt a bit. I need to come up with a fix for this by next weekend.

I only saw two cameras on the course both right at the end. I had just enough mental faculties left to remember some advice I read on marathoning: More pictures are bought from marathons than any other race, so remember to SMILE. I gave the first one I saw a really big smile. I'm not sure what I my face looked like for the second one. I probably looked like I'd been hit over the head and was a little woozy.

The after party had some of the best, in my limited experience, post-race food. Top Pot Doughnuts was giving away free chocolate raspberry old fashioned doughnuts. Heaven in a plastic wrap as long as you love sugar, which I do. Panera was handing out an assortment of bagels. I only took an Everything bagel. So much garlic on it. It was wonderful! There was some bottled water, both flavored and unflavored. I drank one of each. There were some chips, which were pretty good too. I saw some people walking around with bananas. I limited myself to one of whatever I took, but I saw people who looked like they were stocking up for a food shortage.

Hours later I'm still recovering. My knees are hurting. My nipples are hurting. I had a headache for a while but it's gone now. Walking even to the fridge or the bathroom is a challenge. Even with that I'm glad I did the half early. It was a great experience and I think I'll be willing to do it again next year.

Just for fun I put a map of the route down below. Tell me that miles 6-10 don't look like they could have been a little neater. It worked in the real world, but that doesn't make it any less confusing on paper.



Pace Chart
Mile 1 – 10:17
Mile 2 – 10:02
Mile 3 – 9:12
Mile 4 – 10:11
Mile 5 – 9:54
Mile 6 – 9:49
Mile 7 - 10:26
Mile 8 - 9:55
Mile 9 - 10:10
Mile 10 - 9:57
Mile 11 - 10:09
Mile 12 - 10:53
Mile 13 - 10:33
Remainder (.2 miles) – 1:47