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Race Report
Well, it had to happen eventually. After a four race PR streak I finally broke my streak. It was bound to happen though. It's unreasonable to assume that I can run every race in my life faster than the last, and it might as well happen on my fifth half marathon.
What do you do when you're coming down with a cold the night before your half marathon race? PR of course! Don't sleep, don't eat, don't feel mentally prepared, but still go out there and run like there's no tomorrow. Sounds about right. Richmond was a tough race and it will be an even tougher recovery.
It was starting to smell like goats in the rented sprinter van - Vincent Van Goats! Gear was scattered everywhere, sweaty running clothes were basically stewing petri dishes in sealed ziploc bags. The string lights were tangled on a head rest. And I was done with all three of my relay legs.
An old church. Bentonville Battlefield. Torrential rain. The Orionids meteor shower. All of this and more happened before and on my second leg of the Tuna Run 200.
t's not a race for me unless something goes wrong. We had a double team of twelve runners so that we would always have someone to run with. For my first time running a relay - especially one that included overnight runs on small country roads - this was a comfort. Unfortunately though, because of Hurricane Matthew several legs were cancelled, including one of mine. I made up for it by running as a companion runner for leg 1.
I wasn't exactly looking forward to the Tar Heel 10 Miler on Saturday. It's a beautiful run past the highlights of Chapel Hill but gosh is the course agony! I never seem to focus and prepare for it mentally and emotionally: I was preoccupied by training for my spring half marathons last year and this year and didn't properly prep for the hills and do the 10 Miler justice. But all my friends run it, as do coworkers and acquaintances and (almost) family and people I know from college but haven't seen in years and fellow Fleet Feet training program members. And did I mention it's in gorgeous Chapel Hill?!
I am terrible at the starting line. Months of training for a half marathon and this was the second time I was late to the starting line. I woke up late, changed clothes, grabbed my gear, got out the door as fast as possible, hoped I wouldn't get stuck at a red light, and drove as fast as was reasonable. Of course being late meant all the parking lots near the starting line were full, so I parked in a garage halfway across town and ran 0.67 miles (I mapped it) to the starting line. I literally had 30 seconds between arriving at the start line and the start...
2400 calories. 12 doughnuts. 5 miles. 1 hour. The first time I heard about the Krispy Kreme Challenge was seven years ago when I was a college sophomore. On Saturday I ran the race for the third time. Details in the post!
