Last weekend (please note the timeliness of this post!) Joe and I ran our third half marathon. When we initially heard about the Corvallis Half, we'd already set our sights on the Eugene Half (May 1) and didn't think that we could do both. We hmmed and we hawed. Corvallis is where we started running. We ran some in Alaska, but we really started running a few months after we moved to Corvallis. We started on the Bald Hill path, and the Corvallis Half was going to retrace those footsteps. After much thought, we decided that we would make the Corvallis Half a training run for Eugene (watch for the Eugene post in May!).
Our long run the week before the half was a 10 miler and at mile 4.97 of our out-and-back, my knee quit via my IT band. There was no warning, no "gosh maybe you should think about turning around before you get as far as possible from home;" it just quit. I stretched and hobbled back a quarter mile, and repeated that process twice. All the while I was thinking of friends nearby who could come pick us up. I gave it one last stretch before I gave up entirely and that stretch carried me three miles. We made it home with one last stretch. It wasn't looking good for the race though. I gave it a good break, ice, NSAIDS, and tried another 5 miler during the week that went about as well. So, we were officially not running for the next four days in hopes of recovering. Now, since Corvallis was supposed to be a training run, this set us up for it poorly. All of a sudden we were tapering in the middle of our training instead of breaking ourselves down. With a good taper in, a knee that couldn't be counted on (now or for Eugene necessarily), good health (also something you can't count on, see Columbia Gorge Half),and a nice flat race, we were flumuxed. The training run for that day should have been a 15k pace. We decided to run our 9.3 miles at pace (assuming we made it that far), and then see how we felt. If we felt good, we'd maintain and shoot to meet our goal. If we didn't, we'd back off and see what we could do in Eugene.
Sunday morning we got up at 6:45 for a superb race start time of 9:30, had our oatmeal and tea and coffee, and headed out to meet my Mom at Gill Coluseum, near the race start where the marching band was playing. Fifteen minutes before the race, we headed to the porta potties, and found an enormous line. With a little luck we found ourselves peeing to the national anthem, and slipping into the group moments before the start. But it wasn't quite that smooth. Runners line up according to expected pace and shortly before the start they all compress together. We made it into line after that compression and the person I asked about the pace had no idea what I was talking about. We just had to hope that we were in the right area. We were shooting for a sub two hour finish, so we were hoping to find our high 8, low 9 minute pace folks. But with the gun, we were off! They played Fanfare for a Common Man, which was awesome and fairly appropriate. Also, we discovered that not only was my mom there to cheer us on, but "the cousins" were too! "The cousins" are officially Joe's cousins, and I have had the pleasure of acquiring them as mine too. They consist of a good number of cousins, but also an aunt and an uncle. Emilie was running the half too, which we didn't know until the day before the race. This was a lucky situation, because not only did we get to cheer Emilie on, we got her cheering section for us too! So, we had lots of cheering to send us on our way.
The first few miles went through OSU's campus, and were fairly easy. The only trouble here was the camber of the road, which was a serious threat to my IT band and knee. We solved that by running straight down the middle of the road-so much for race etiquette. In that section the counsins were there to cheer us on, not once, but twice!
After we roamed through campus proper, we headed out to the trail that runs through the fields and barns, and underneath the covered bridge out to the fairgrounds and the base of Bald Hill. My mom was waiting to cheer us on and catch my extra clothing after we crossed 53rd. We felt excellent as we headed into and along Bald Hill and remembered when those rolling hills had been such a challenge. It was an amazing feeling to run our third half marathon in the place that we had started by run-walking.
Bald Hill lead us out to the extension of Harrison, and this is where I thought I was done. Up until that point my knee had only made brief and light commentary-the sort of thing that would be standard on a normal run to the point that I wouldn't notice it--and I'd been able to baby it by running on the flat portions of the road. On Harrison we had to run on the shoulder in the bike lane. The camber was bad and my knee was pissed. I figured I'd stop to stretch as we turned onto 53rd, and see if I could make it from there, or if I'd have to be responsible (which I hate) and stop. But as we rounded onto 53rd and I looked for a good stretch spot, my knee reported that it was fine, and we went on without a stretch.
We climbed 53rd at a solid pace considering the false zero and were releaved to reach the aid station at the top of the slow hill, and the sharp downhill following. After gluggling our Ultima, we cruised down the hill. At the bottom the cousins drove by and we got another good cheer. Earlier in the race we actually had a fellow runner as us if we'd hired them. :)
From there we hooked into a little neighborhood, paused for a brief stretch, and soon after hit our 9.3 mile mark. Both feeling good, and having maintained an incredibly solid pace, we decided to go for our sub 2 hour goal and keep on keeping on. We then turned right, which marked our return to the finish.
I don't know what it is about mile 10, but it seems that it all feels great (excluding the Columbia River Gorge sick run) until that point. At 10 miles we always wonder what on earth we were thinking. It seemed that the aid station frequency increased in this section though, which helped a whole lot. Before we knew it we could see Reser (the finish) and.....we turned right, away from it. After about a half mile more of plodding, we could hear the announcer and we knew we were headed in.
We navigated the sharp hill into the stadium (killer when your stabilizer muscles have quit), rounded the final corner, and headed for the 50 yard line with the clock reading 1:54! We were thrilled! We cruised over the finish line with a chip time of 1:54:04, and beat our previous PR by just over 6 minutes. A volunteer I knew cheered us on, they took off our chips, handed us water, and we quickly headed over to my mom who had our warm things ready. I've had kind of a rough time lately with getting really badly cold after long runs, so I stripped off my wet things and slammed on my warm clothes. It helped a whole lot. Then we headed up, got our chicken noodle soup and bananas! Next stop was with my mom at the spectator section of the finish. She congratulated us, gave us hugs, and headed back home to run errands. It was so nice to have her there.
Usually we head home after races to stretch and recover, but this race was different. We knew tons of people who were running it, and for many of them it was their first half. It was brutal on our tired legs, but we wanted to stick around to cheer them on. Shortly, my friend Kathryn, who had intended to see the finish (we were faster than I thought) joined us in the stadium with...get this...mexican hot chocolate made with rice milk for us. Excellent race support. The counsins soon joined us and we cheered on finishers. Kathryn headed back home, but promised to meet us for lunch and a beer once we were done.
We watched for a long time, and saw Chris, Emilie, Gail, and Shelley finish, but sadly missed Teresa, Gordon, and Ben. Perhaps they went by in disguise. That's why we stayed so long. We were waiting for people who had already finished! We finally gave up (good thing too) and called Ben and Kathryn to meet us at Block 15 for BBQ burgers (Oh- yes) and our half-weizens (Block 15 gave dollar pints to finishers!). It was fabulous.
We trundled home, showered and watched a movie. It was deliciously relaxing. At 6, finding ourselves lacking the energy to make dinner, we drove to Market of Choice, bought 2 pepperoni strombolis and a piece of white and black cake, then back to the couch we went. It was really a fabulous race. Fabulous! We were so proud and it was great to have other people we knew run too. We also found that we knew many of the fans along the course, and that made the experience even cooler.
Splits:
1-8:51
2-8:42
3-8:45
4-8:53
5-8:53
6-8:38
7-8:54
8-9:15
9-9:08
10-8:47
11-9:00
12-9:21
13-6:53
I do think the course was a bit short, because my garmin only logged 12.75 miles. It could be my Garmin, or it could be the course. I feel alright though because even with another .35 miles, I know we could have made it well under 2 hours.
Postlude: I had noticed after the race that my face was quite swollen. My cheeks were so puffy they pinched my eyes, but I didn't think much of it until the next day when I found myself 3 lbs heavier than the day before. No biggy in the long run, but in one day, that's a huge load of water. My thighs were visibly swollen, and pants that usually went over my bum didn't even make it past my mid thigh. Dressing for work was a challenge, but I pulled it off for 3 bloated days. I'm happy to report that I have returned to my original size. If nothing else, it was definintely a new experience!
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