The first day of school went well for both boys. Jacob didn't fall sleep during his first day of all day kindergarten and Nathan didn't freak out when I had to leave him at preschool. In fact, when I told him that I had to leave he said, "Ok, bye Momma." I'm actually glad that the first day was so hectic and busy because then I didn't have time to have a complete meltdown watching my first born baby walk off into the start of his school career and his ever increasing independence from Mommy!!! The weather was HORRIBLE!!! It was pouring rain all morning, so I didn't get to take any nice outdoor 'first day of school' pictures and poor Isabel and I got soaking wet from all of the running in and out of school buildings and running errands.
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| On their way to their first day of Kindergarten and Preschool! |
After my super busy week David and I then headed off for our first kid-free vacation!!! We were both super excited about it! However, I did want to abort the whole thing the night before we left. As I was getting everything packed I started thinking about the fact that this was going to be the first time that I was going to leave my kids for more than one night (voluntarily). I'm pretty sure I had never gone more than 24 consecutive hours (if even that) without seeing them! Luckily, my need to have that alone time with my husband prevailed and we started up north around 10:00am Friday morning.
It seems like anytime David and I decide to go anywhere for a trip the weather is crappy! This trip was no exception. It was overcast, rainy, and chilly the whole weekend. While I did not mind having cooler temps, it would have been nice to have more sunshine than we did.
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| The Mackinac Bridge |
I feel like I'm never going to get this post done and published so I'm going to skim over the non-running related stuff. After checking into what turned out to be the WRONG hotel (another person with the same last name had a reservation) we headed over the Mackinac Bridge into the U.P. and to a casino to see if we could win some money...no such luck...but we had fun. When we got back to the hotel we found out that we were actually booked at a hotel two doors down, so we had to get all of that straightened out. Bottom line...DON'T FORGET TO PRINT OUT YOUR CONFIRMATION E-MAIL!!!
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We got up at 6:00am Saturday morning so that we could hopefully grab something to eat and make the first ferry over to the island. We spotted a little bakery that was open (we saw all of the cars parked out front...other runners). I got a blueberry bagel with cream cheese and an ice water; David got two oatmeal raisin cookies and a coffee. All of their donuts and pastries looked AMAZING!!! I'm glad we only had a few minutes otherwise it would have been hard to not get one of everything! Luckily we were able to catch the first ferry over to the island, which insured us plenty of time to find a locker for our stuff and to get our bib numbers and shirts. I started chatting with an older couple on the ferry. They had a little dog that looked a lot like my Grandpa's last dog Happy. They had both run this particular race before but the wife would be running it alone this year because the husband had started to develop hip problems. I felt really bad for him. You could just tell that he loved either running or just doing things with his wife...probably both...and you could see the disappointment in his face. The wife had made the comment that she would be all on her own...so I decided that I would try to find her at the starting line and at least start off with her. They were a very nice couple and I wish I had thought to ask their names!!!
David and I were able to get a locker right off the ferry and walked the half mile up to the resort where they were distributing the bib numbers and shirts. After getting our bibs and shirts we walked back to the lockers so we didn't have to hold our shirts or find a place to stash them (another half mile) and then back to the resort which is where the race starting/finish line was (another half mile). I was concerned that I was wasting a lot of the energy I had on the walks back and forth so we tried to take it easy. In hindsight, I wish we had taken the 7:30am ferry instead of the 7:00am because we had to stand (the only seats were lounging chairs looking out on the lake that were wet from the rain) around for more than a half hour before the race started. Of course I decide that I should try going to the bathroom one more time with just 10 minutes left before the start of the race and got in the race line with just a couple of minutes to spare. I found the lady I had been chatting with on the ferry and told her that I would at least start off with her since we were both running alone (oh yeah, my husband is way too competitive to "not try his best" during a race by staying back and running with me)...but I lost her right away. There were just so many people to dodge that you just had to make your way through alone. I saw her blow past me shortly after heading into town...she was hoping for a 10-11 min./mile pace...I definitely wasn't going to be doing that.
I had been debating and debating how I was going to approach this race since I had never ran (and walked) in anything longer than a 5k. I knew I jumped ahead of myself, but the idea of getting away with just my husband was so appealing that I didn't really think about what my physical ability would be by this time. I was pretty sure that I was just going to do one mile intervals of walking and running but David talked me into running as far as I could to begin with and then just go from there. So I ended up running 1.5 miles and then walking a half mile before starting my planned on mile intervals. Since the mileage of this race was an even number I knew that I would either have to run or walk two miles back to back at some point. I was doing pretty well, but I could really tell that I was becoming exhausted and I didn't bring my own water because I didn't want to carry it the whole time and I was sure there would be water stations along the route (there were only THREE while on the course...not including the finish line) so I decided that running two miles back to back was not an option, but I really didn't want to walk two miles straight either and I wanted to finish the race running...so I decided to walk the first half of the last mile and then run the very last half mile to the finish. Shortly after starting to run the last half mile I saw David waiting on the sidelines. He started running alongside me and it was immediately clear that he had injured his knee...which he had been worried about since being in a lot of pain after the Crim. I told him he could stop running but he just told me to worry about myself. He tried to tell me to "turn up the gas" or something to that effect and I said...'there isn't any gas left'! I was SO tired and the last half mile seemed to last FOREVER. I was able to pick up the pace a little bit right before crossing the finish line but I seriously felt like I wanted to die after finishing. I wanted to collapse on the ground, but I knew it was wet and I didn't want to ruin my clothes. Oh, I wore my Crim training group t-shirt and got a lot of compliments for the saying on the back.
Since we were both tired, sore, and sweaty we didn't stay on the island long. We caught the next ferry back to Mackinaw City and went back to our hotel room to shower and ended up napping for a couple hours. It was so odd to just lay around in bed in the middle of the day and nap for as long as we wanted! The rest of our weekend was pretty uneventful...which was GREAT!
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| Not a bad photo for taking it ourselves...and David having to run (with his injured knee) to get to me before the 10 seconds were up. : ) |
I was SO SORE the next day! Everything from my lower back and hips down was sore! I even got my first blister on the side of my big toe. I'm not sure how that happened. I took a few days off from running and went for my first post 8 mile race run last night. Its getting dark way too early now! I left a little before 8:00pm and it was already pretty dark and there was no moon in sight so I decided to only run the loop at the end of my road twice and then finish the rest of the 30 minutes looping the part of the road that I live on. Several of our neighbors have bright flood lights on their garages so it lights up the road pretty well. I can't share my splits because I LOST my Garmin USB stick...so I can't upload my workouts to Garmin Connect. I've looked everywhere and still can't find it so I started looking at them online and can get a replacement for about $20 if its truly lost.
*I found my USB so here are my actual splits! : )
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| Mackinac Island 8 Mile Race Splits. The 9th split is my "turning up the gas" pace. lol |
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| C25K Week 9 Workout 2 Splits |
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Finally...I am SOOOO close to being 30 pounds down!!! It feels like its taking FOREVER!!! I realize it really isn't taking that long and my weekend away is going to set me back some because of the amount of sodium and not so healthy food I ate (I never went crazy though...the Phentermine really helped with that). I wanted to finally share a BEFORE AND AFTER PHOTO!!! I can't really tell a difference but I'm way more critical. Part of the reason why it took me so long to get this post up was because my new computer broke so I've been having to use my old one and the memory is completely used up, not to mention that its really messed up anyways, so I couldn't get the photos edited so that I could put them side by side.
Congrats on your race:) Holy what a difference in 30 pounds! You look great:)
ReplyDeleteCongrats on the progress! I love the UP...and am thinking about the Mackinac half marathon at the end of October but haven't made the commitment yet. I hope his knee is better!
ReplyDeleteI loved the race report! And are you kidding? You look fantastic and I definitely see a difference in the two photos! Nice job!
ReplyDeleteWow you look great!!
ReplyDeleteI ran this race too. I came in a 1:56 so we must have run by each other at some point. It was my first time at the Mackinac 8 mile. I hope to do it again next year! Congratulations and keep up the good work.
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