Derby Half Marathon Recap

Friday - expo and dinner - Jeremy and I drove to Lexington to pick up Jeremy's brother, Jordan. We stopped at Jimmy Johns on the way up and got lunch.  After we picked up Jordan, we drove to Louisville and checked in to our hotel.  We met Lesley and her husband, who were also staying at our hotel, and headed to the expo a few blocks away. I love walking through expos, it's always fun to look at running stuff. But I didn't buy anything this time.  After the expo, we walked several blocks to the Bluegrass Brewing Co. for dinner where we could get some meat and potatos. 



Race Shirt

Saturday - prerace - I did not sleep well at all the night of the half.  The hotel we were staying at was very close to where a live band was playing and we were on that side of the hotel. In addition to that Jordan was talking in his sleep and my sister-in-law was playing words with friends at 3AM.  (love ya trisha) Needless to say my sleep was not very restful.  When the alarm went off at 5:45AM though we did have the good fortune of it NOT raining!!

Me and Lesley in the coral

Jeremy, Jordan, Lesley, Clay (her husband) and I walked to another hotel to pick up Twila, Monica (her other running buddy) and Clay's running partner Pat.  Then we headed down to the starting line.  Lesley and I dropped everyone off and headed on back to go to a port a potty and our coral.  We were able to take care of business before the race started. We decided we would not talk during the race but would stay together as long as we could.  We stayed together through mile 7ish, with me hollering to walk on our scheduled walk breaks every 9 minutes.  Lesley was starting to pull away. I was able to keep her in sight for a while but finally lost her.

Miles 1-8 were good. I was on pace to get a PR, unfotunately the wheels fell off quickly.  Around mile 9 or so I was starting to really feel it.  I think I had drank too much water and had that sloshy feeling in my stomach.  I should have taken one more GU around then but didnt think I could handle it.  Mile 9 was my worst mile by far time wise.  I'm not quite sure what happened then. I don't remember it being that bad but according to my watch it was!  I do remember starting to feel like my right underarm starting to run as well as my legs where the compression shorts hit at the bottom.  :(

My leg where my shorts rubbed

Around mile 10 a girl that I had been going back and forth with through mile 9 asked if she could run next to me to help her keep pace. Her running partner had gone on ahead too.  So we ran for the most part in silence for the next 3 miles trying to encourage each other when it was time to walk. My walk breaks of one minute became more like one and half to two minute break. 

Finally we turned the corner and saw the finish.  I crossed the line with a time of 2:52:22.  Three minutes slower than my PR time from West Virginia.  My father in law who had volunteered at the race was there to take my picture and walk with me to get some food while we waited on Jeremy and Jordan and Twila to finish.   

My medal

I'm not extremely disappointed with my time and not PR'ing.  I do have another race in three weeks and think this will help me in that one since we never did a 12 miler before this half.  I know I need to drink less and eat another GU somewhere around mile 9. 

Jeremy's dad and I waited at the finish and watched Jordan break 4 hours for the first time, Twila hit 4 hours on the dot, and watched Jeremy unfortunately add some time to his previous full marathon PR.  He had been on pace to break 4 through mile 20.5 but hit the wall majorly. 

He says Cleveland will be his last marathon...... I'm not so sure.  I think he has learned and knows he needs to train, eat and hydrate differently.  Hopefully we can get some of that worked out before the Cleveland race.