I have done back-to-back long races only one other time, and that was back in July when I was in much better shape from marathon training. Also, there was a full week in between (Saturday to Sunday).
Today? Second half marathon in LESS than a week. (Ran on Sunday, and today is Saturday.) Oi.
Ouch. Owie. ALL THE HURTS.
All things considered though, I still finished with my second fastest HM time ever (2:59:04 - hey, I wanted to go under three!). What a difference the climate makes, right? It was still kind of warm for my liking, and I spent a good portion of the race course in direct sunlight, but Florida was just frickin' brutal. I bet if I hadn't run this past Sunday, I'd have done even better today. (I <3 Bay Area running.)
The first two miles were probably the worst. It's like every possible thing that could hurt was hurting - my ankle, my knee, my shins, my calves, my quads. "NOOOO STOP WHAT ARE YOU DOING??" screamed my legs. I had to stop briefly to tighten my shoe laces (which made a lot of things better), and while it never got EASY, I managed to push through at a solid pace.
The last three miles felt like six. I seriously swear, after I passed the mile 12 sign, it took me a billion years to finish the last mile. My calves were crampy for the last two miles, so I started splitting my intervals (I normally do a 3/1, but I started walking the second minute, so it ended up being a 1/1 instead) and thankfully I crossed the finish line without limping or dying, unlike the Princess Half, where I could barely walk.
After picking up my medal bag, I made a beeline for the refreshments (the best part!), and then all was well with the world:
So yeah. That's all. I've got one more back-to-back in May (Brazen's Western Pacific and Mermaid Run East Bay, both of which are in the exact same place). My next race is in two weeks - Badger Cove. It's one of those scary trail ones. I plan to do the early hikers' start because I expect to take about a year and a half to finish it. It's part of the Brazen Ultra Half series.
A couple more pics:
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| The walk from the parking lot. Isn't that lovely? It's not SO crazy for me to want to be here doing this, right? |
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| Me and Michael, who did the 10k. This is probably the only picture where I don't look like I'm dying. |