So it’s done. It’s Monday and my body both feels better and yet in more pain than it has in a long, long time.
Yesterday, Amanda and I ran the Alexandria Running Festival half marathon race. 13.1 miles on this course in Alexandria, VA.
This was the first time we had ever run that far, and only the second time running in an official race. We completed it in a little over 2 and a half hours, but time really wasn’t our concern. We just wanted to finish.
We went to pick up our race packets and bib numbers on Saturday at the race hotel in Alexandria. They had a little expo thing going on there but we really just came and went.
We tried to take Saturday as easy as possible but I still wound up re-hanging the screen door on my deck, doing a decent bit of gardening, and some other various chores. I’m not really good at doing nothing. We got everything ready for the race the evening before and it was next to impossible trying to fall asleep.
The night before the race, I made a pasta carbonara with ramps and asparagus using a recipe from Eddie’s Culinary Studio. It came out most excellent.
The morning of the race started at about 5:30am. We got up and had breakfast – Amanda had a bagel with cream cheese while I had Greek yogurt and almonds, bagel, and an orange. On the way to the race I suggested that she also have an apple for some more carbs and quick energy, which she did. Unfortunately, right after she ate it her heartburn kicked in. The acid from the apple was too much – it’s rare for me to ever have heartburn so I don’t usually think of something like an apple as something to be wary of – but for her it’s a whole different world. She tends to be really sensitive to anything that might cause any sort of heartburn to flare up.
We started the race towards the back of the pack because we had been waiting in the port-a-john line until right before the gun (7am). They only had 5 for about 500 people. Not good planning. In fact, to call this event a ‘festival’ was really a bit of a stretch. More on that later.
Having judged by the course map, it looked like the race would be a loop – out and back. As we were running, we realized we were halfway through that course way faster than we expected, and it started to dawn on us that it wasn’t just out and back – it was out and back and out and back. So you basically just ran a quarter marathon twice. Kind of annoying. It probably would’ve been nicer if it was just longer but oh well. The part of it that went on a trail and through the parks was pretty nice.
So we ran and ran and ran and struggled and struggled. We went without music/headphones and I really enjoyed that aspect of it. Having someone to talk to helped a lot. We had decided that we would run the race together, even if it meant either of us had to slow down here or there for the other one to deal. There were a few moments of walking but for the most part they were brief. There was a bathroom stop somewhere around the 9th or 10th mile. By the end of the race, Amanda had gotten sick 3 times and my nips were bleeding from the chafing. 13.1 miles is many things, but sexy is not one of them.
My left knee starting aching around mile 8 and it got to the point where I really couldn’t walk because it would seize up and I knew I had to keep running until the end and just suffer it then. It was a pain I was familiar with – and a result of too much mileage too fast. We really hadn’t gotten to train sufficiently for this race – only having run more than 10 miles about 3 times. Amanda, though, was hardcore. When she got sick around mile 12 (most likely due in no insignificant part to the apple I had so thoughtlessly suggested), she just did her thing and then she kept right on running… moving faster afterward than I think she had for the whole rest of the race.
There was a huge hill at the end of the course, and coming up and over it to reach the finish line was an amazing feeling. My parents met us there and cheered us on as we crossed the line, and then we collapsed on the grass. We tried to have some conversation and talk about the experience but I was having some trouble forming coherent sentences at that point. I’m still not sure I have all my thoughts together about the whole thing, but I do know that – even if it wasn’t our best run ever – it was really fun and really enjoyable.
After the race I went off in search of some ice or a bandage for my knee, and neither the race staff nor the medic staff on hand could provide me with either. And the medic staff were too busy chatting with their friends and basically doing fuck-all to help me out. Honestly, I’ve only run two races, but this one seemed really low budget and poorly organized. This was no ‘festival,’ it was a couple small rain tents and one guy with a microphone. I’m not sure what I expected, but this wasn’t it. I doubt we’d ever run this particular race again – neither the course nor the event seemed like anything worth coming back to.
This was really a minor thing though, all in all. It’s not like we would have had the energy to stick around and party at a festival anyway. Still, it was hard not to notice.
13.1 miles… a half marathon. Vomiting, bloody nipples. Glory (sort of). Neither of us have run for longer than a year yet, and still after an event like this it’s hard to feel that you haven’t crossed into a new territory of running. Am I a seasoned runner now? Maybe not so much just yet. But this was certainly a level up.
So I’ve done a 5 mile race. I’ve done a half marathon. It’s time to take a few weeks off, but my ultimate goal here is to run a marathon in the Fall, so in another week or two I will be out there again running 10+ miles regularly on the weekend. And I’m looking forward to it.
Just as soon as I get a chance to recover.
