The New Bedford 1/2 Marathon was two weeks ago, but I've been a lapsed blogger since then. Here's to making up for lost time:
Going into the weekend I had a sartorial crisis. It began with an innocent-seeming email from Beth that said, 'Have you picked up your singlet yet?' We, and Heidi and Erika, were going down to New Bedford with the GMAA team -- team bus, team hotel, team dinner. All of these decisions were made so gradually that I was a little stunned and intimidated when I realized how thoroughly I had insinuated myself into a team racing weekend. With fast runners. Yikes.
I hit the limit of my comfort zone with the singlet. Just to be clear, a singlet is a tank top, not a wrestling suit as some of my rugby-playing friends assumed. More importantly, to me a singlet says, "I am a super fast racing demon! Step aside whilst I crush you with my speed!" But ME wearing a singlet? The message is more like, "Appreciate the irony! I am slow, but delusional enough to wear a racing singlet as I finish last!"
I drew a line on the team experience at wearing the singlet, and had to look askance and feign distraction at the team dinner when more than person said, "Does everyone have a singlet? We have extras for anyone who didn't get a singlet!"
On race day, the weather was gorgeous. The first warm, sunny day I'd experienced since the last visit to San Diego. The breeze was a little strong, but the sun actually felt too hot when the wind died down briefly. The course has a series of hills at the beginning, then miles of flatness then one long hill at the end. At breakfast, people who'd run the race before warned us to 'save something' for the last hill.
I was unsettled at the start line, full of emotion and agitation. I started out too fast, then calmed down and found an appropriate pace. I panicked at the first water stop when they had no cups left (WTF?! Insert complaints of back-of-the-pack-slow-runners-don't-get-no-respect here).
A few miles in, after the initial hill, I was keeping a steady, faster than I expected pace. My training had been... underwhelming and my expectations were limited to just finishing. But I was actually running 11-minute miles or under and feeling pretty strong. I lost a little time taking a port-o-let break, but then cruised into the last miles running faster than I had earlier in the race.
At mile 12, I saw the hill and was beginning to give myself a pep talk when Chad showed up to run the end of the race with me. During most of the 10:30 it took to run that mile, I was on the verge on saying, 'ok thanks - got it from here, sadist.' But he kept running just a bit faster than I thought I could go, and I managed to keep up with him. The course turns a corner just before the finish line, where I saw Beth and Heidi, long since finished, cheering me on before I hit the last timing mat.
My official time was 2:24, so much faster than I thought possible! (The weekend before I had run 12 miles in 2:27.) I knew towards the end of the race that I was in striking distance of my PR from the 2008 Unplugged Half in Burlington. I thought that time was 2:23, and coming so close after such miserable training felt like a triumph, and not at all a let down. But then I got home from Massachusetts, and dug my Unplugged bib out of a box and looked at the time I wrote on the back: 2:25!! I did PR! By one short minute.
A few quick observations about the differences between traveling with runners vs. traveling with rugby players. Runners seem to be well-organized, on time, prepared, almost fastidious. Rugby players... not so much. Bathroom breaks on the road were few and efficient. Rugby road trips... not so much. The runners showered and changed after the race, and had clean clothes to wear for the ride home. Rugby players..... well. But for all their exuberant, chaotic messiness, rugby road trips gave rise to some of my favorite stories of misadventures with friends. Like the time we got lost in Rhode Island, and ended up at a donut shop at midnight getting a tour of sprinkle bins and fryolaters from the Jehovah's Witnesses who worked there. Good times, made possible only by bad navigation and leaving later than we planned.
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