I’m having a hard time writing this recap, because…well, I’ll just throw it out there.  I came in LAST in the 20K. 

And while I’m proud I finished, I’m embarrassed to be so darned BAD at running.  I mean, sure I’m better than those who don’t try, yada, yada, but really, honestly, I suck at running.  I’m very uncoordinated, and I have a really hard time with pretty much all physical activities.  Things just don’t come easy to me.

In a nutshell, I play the violin and I read really quickly and remember a lot of things.  I have a wonderful sense of direction and I enjoy wearing red pants.  Those are things I do well.

Running, not so much.

Okay, so now that THAT is out of the way.

The Skippo.

I signed up in August, and I had figured I’d run the Mo Cowbell in October then keep running.  That didn’t exactly happen due to some hip issues, and I considered dropping down to the 10K.  (The Skippo is a trail race that is a 10k loop.  You can run it once, twice, or three times.)  I thought the 20K sounded like fun, so that’s why I chose it.  Oh, and you get a medal afterwards.  I knew it would be challenging, but…I had no idea.

I told myself going into the race that I would run the 20K unless my hip were bothering me, in which case I would only run 10K.  That was, in my mind, my only out.

I was also “inspired” by fellow blogger Rose who had recently run an untrained half marathon (quote from her:  nobody expects you to set any land speed records), and by fellow local blogger Kate who was pushing herself to run the 30K.  As an added bonus, I was finally going to meet Kate (we’ve been reading each others blogs and commenting and tweeting at each other for a long time!)

The race started at 9 am.  I got there before 8 am and parked nearby.  I read a bit and then got out of the car to use the porta-potty and find Kate.  I did, and was introduced to many of her friends, most of whom I’m completely forgotten (so if you are reading this, please say hi and reintroduce yourself as I was really tired and I’m forgetful.)

Here’s Kate and me.  She looks afraid of me.  I was way too smiley for what was about to happen.

Anyway, Kate’s friend Sarah and I realized we were around the same pace (hypothetically) so we decided to start running together. 

Me at the beginning. 

The race started in waves and we were off.  Sarah was a good running companion because she was very chatty.  We kept a decent pace and the first couple miles were fairly flat.  Then we came to the famous Castlewood stairs.  There are 212 (I think) stairs you have to climb.  The first time through these I felt pretty darned good.  We were proud at the top, and stopped for a quick photo shoot.

I look a little tired, but felt pretty good.  The next bit of the course was more downhill but not too rocky.  I get a little afraid of heights (ha, I’m incredibly afraid of heights, but luckily there wasn’t anything too bad)—sometimes I had to walk a bit but basically kept running.  Then there was a creek crossing and my feet got very wet.  After that there was a hill which I swear was straight up, and I had to walk most of that—that’s when I lost Sarah.  After the hill I kept running more often than not though a few times I lost my footing a bit and walked a bit to gain confidence.  I made it to the 10K line in around 1:30…slow, but not bad.  I felt strong as I went past. 

After about another mile is when things started going really downhill.  I was tired, thirsty, the bottoms of my feet and toes hurt, and was alone on the course except for other people just enjoying their day.  My feet were absolutely KILLING me and I couldn’t figure out if running or walking was worse so I kept alternating and both sucked.  I wished so much I had carried water with me—I hadn’t taken the weather into account at all in this sense—it was over 70 degrees which was very hot for me and for my “training” and I was dying.  I managed my way up the stairs for the second time just barely and was just plodding along.  The downhill I tried some running but I was feeling dizzy and tired and was worried about falling so I walked much more. 

The creek crossing I barely recall and finally I was back to the awful uphill that I’d been dreading.  GAH it was awful and I almost gave up.  I was getting passed by 30K er’s this whole time and a few friend’s of Kate’s encouraged me by name and that helped a little.  Getting passed by a guy walking his bike up the hill helped too, and finally I made it. 

I tried running a bit more but my calves just didn’t want me to, plus I was terrified of twisting my ankle.  I walked the rest.  I knew my time was terrible, but I was just glad to be done.

The finish line was pretty anticlimactic.  They probably weren’t even expecting any more 20K finishers and had to go retrieve my medal from somewhere else.  I felt like a bit of a loser 🙁   I got a mug and filled it with water (the mug is in the dishwasher right now so I don’t have a picture but there’s one on Kate’s blog) and then I headed towards my car.

It’s a cool wooden medal.

Chris was worried since I’d taken much longer than I thought (3:24:26, to be exact) so I reassured him I was still alive, but that I needed to stop at a gas station to get some supplies.  I got a protein shake and a huge Gatorade.  I felt nauseous, thirsty, and was in pain all over.  Somehow I made it home! 

The weirdest thing was that then when I tried to eat later (first I napped a bit, but my legs hurt so much I was having a hard time with that!) I couldn’t—the roof of my mouth hurt like a sore throat hurts, and food hurt so much!  I actually had to stick with soft foods and liquids for two days.  Google tells me it was from being so thirsty.  In retrospect, I definitely should have a) trained more b) carried water and c) from reading Kate’s blog maybe I need salt tablets for my cramping calves.  Oh well!  I finished, and I didn’t give up, as much as I wanted to.  There’s something to be said for that, right? 

I’ll probably run this again next year and try to redeem myself 🙂 

The thing at least is this:  I’ve been terrified of coming in last in a race.  Now I have!  And it wasn’t so bad. 

A month or two ago I was chatting with a friend, neighbor, and most importantly (ha!) BLOG READER, Mandy, about various upcoming events and possibilities.  We decided to "run" the Glo Run to do something different, and to do something together.  These "gimmick" runs have been popping up everywhere—glow runs (at night, you wear light up gear), color runs (you get sprayed with color), zombie runs (you are chased by supposedly fake zombies) and so we thought it would be fun to try. 

We decided to primarily walk the "race."  It wasn’t a timed run so we figured there was no real incentive to be heroes, and Mandy was dealing with a knee problem anyway.  We figured maybe we’d run some or not, depending on how many people were there (we didn’t want to be the only walkers, for instance.) 

They did change the time of the race a few days beforehand.  It was originally at 7:30 but in the email the organizers sent out a few days before we were told it was changed to 6:30.  Luckily I was still free (seriously, some of us actually work on Saturdays and plan this stuff around our work schedules) but I would have been pretty ticked off.  Mandy never even got the email so that was strange as well. 

We met up and drove to Forest Park about an hour beforehand.  We (correctly) assumed that packet pickup would be pretty easy.  We got our numbers, a bright yellow shirt, two glo-sticks, and glow-in-the-dark glasses.  The most challenging thing was putting the glasses together.

It was chilly so we headed back to the car to put our stuff on and figure out our "outfits."  Mandy had gotten each of us a light up barrette thing so we were trying to figure out the best way to put the "ensemble" together.  You can tell the priorities here.

They had a stage and a DJ encouraging people to dance—there were a lot of teenage girls there who were having a wonderful time.  We also heard the DJ talking about paint so after we got our glasses ready (which were way too small for my giant head, so I wasn’t planning to wear them) we went in search of the paint.

I didn’t really know what to do so I just went with some face paint.  After that we spent some time wandering around trying to take a good picture of ourselves, or have somebody do it.  After a few false starts I think we did okay.

That’s Mandy, photo bombing my self-portrait.  She understood the importance of taking pictures to a blogger like me.

 

We quickly learned that my head appeared particularly gigantic compared to hers.

I’m actually standing two feet behind her.  Evidently my head is really quite huge.

Wearing a shift over a fleece jacket is a surefire way to look thinner.

You can see in these pictures it was still pretty light.  We thought the race time change was weird, because it was just getting dark.  I guess it was dark enough by the time the race started but I thought it was odd that they moved the time up. 

The "race" itself was fine.  It was a well marked course that went on some of the roads and some of the trails.  There were three "light obstacles" to go through—on the map they are labeled "Black Lights and Bubbles," "Strobe Lights," and "Party Lights."  Basically they were little tents set up with lights inside.  I didn’t care for the strobe lights at all—it was really disorienting.  Oh, and the course was well marked, but it seemed that in places the organizers had thrown down glo sticks to help light the way…and some guy passed us who was obviously an idiot and was picking up all the glo sticks—he had a huge handful and picked them ALL up.  So if those were supposed to help out, um, well, it’s hard dealing with idiots.  

We ran for about 1/2 mile to a mile, but Mandy’s knee was hurting, and frankly, I wasn’t dressed for running so I was FINE walking.  (I walk faster anyway, right?) I think we kept up a pretty good speed walking pace and we even passed a couple runners (I kid you not, we did.)  I think we finished the "race" in about 45 minutes or so.

At the end they had a nice spread of bottled water, chips, granola bars, and fruit snacks.  There was plenty of water, which is always nice.

So that was the Glo Run.  Would I run it again?  Probably not.  It was FINE, but it wasn’t super fun or a great race.  It was just fine. 

 

What’s the number of pictures of myself I can put in one blog post without looking too narcissistic?  Did I reach it?

Have you ever done a Glow or Glo Run?  What are your thoughts on gimmicky runs? 

Is it wrong to end a post with so many questions?

Sunday I ran the MO Cowbell Half Marathon in St Charles, Missouri.  It was the second year of the race, and the second time I had run it.  It was a nice race last year, and this year looked to be even better—a little bigger but still pretty small for a half (3000 runners or so) but with decent crowd support and a fairly flat course.

I went to pick up my packet on Friday—there was a small expo too, which was fun.  I didn’t have too much time but managed to score a couple of free samples and try some various kinds of protein and energy drinks.

  

I was pretty nervous about the race since my training had basically gotten derailed by my trip to France (I know, poor me), my subsequent cold, and then a bit of a niggling hip problem…I had had to cut my last long run of 10 miles short by 4, and then hadn’t run since.  I figured I’d manage to struggle through but my time might not be great.  Then again, another part of me thought, hey, maybe I’ll be miraculously awesome and PR.

My friend Jen was running it too and we rode together to the race.  It was really cold (under 40 degrees) at the start, so I wore a "throwaway" shirt over another long sleeve tech shirt over a tank top, over shorts.  I thought this combination worked pretty well, actually, but the cold took us by surprise.  The race started at Frontier Park in St Charles (about 30 minutes from St Louis), and we were warned to get there early for parking.  We left my house around 5:45 (did you know there is a 5:45 am as well as pm!?) and got to the exit by 6:15 or so.  It took about 15 minutes to get to the parking lot from there as it was backed up a little but not too badly.  We parked, sat in the warm car a few more minutes and then it was porta potty time! 

 

We also debated skipping the race, going straight to breakfast, and just telling people we ran it, but we decided that would be dishonest, and also a secret we’d have to take to the grave that just might not be worth it.  We puttered around as one does at these things, (and ran into Sarah Crowder who was on the job taking pictures of us runners for the race), and finally it was time to line up. 

This trailer was near the start.

I left my watch in the car by accident, but decided not to go back for it and just run on feel.  I knew that I couldn’t stress out about time and either my hip/butt area would feel okay or it wouldn’t.  When the race started I ran easy for a bit but it was pretty uncomfortable at first.  I thought maybe after the first mile my leg would start feeling better (more warmed up) but it didn’t really—I did realize that having a longer stride and running faster made it feel a little better so I did that—I knew that running faster in the long run wouldn’t help me as I was pretty out of breath sometimes, but I just started alternating with walk breaks.  I tried to limit my walk breaks in the first few miles (by few, I mean like 8 or so) to no more than one or two short one per mile and I’d pick a landmark in the distance like a mailbox or fire hydrant or car that I’d make myself start running again.

The course left St Charles and headed into the surrounding farmland.  Then we headed into New Town, which I think is kind of creepy in a Pleasantville/Stepford Wives sort of way, but the crowd support is nice.  We ran around a lake and there was a guy in a wet suit swimming in it.  I had dumped my gray shirt by then (I left it at the first water stop to donate) but I thought he must be cold. 

I stopped somewhere after mile 8 to stretch out my hip, which was becoming increasingly painful.  I kept trying to keep the same people around me with my run/walk "intervals" but I was starting to fall behind as the running was hurting so much less than the walking.  I kept telling myself it was okay, this was supposed to hurt, but a little voice my head would tell me that I had a tendency to injure myself doing stupid stuff, like, remember how I hurt my shoulder, and I was fighting that battle.  I also knew that I would be struggling with a giant hill soon. 

I was walking and a guy came up behind me and started cheering me on—he said I needed to run again because he had been keeping pace with me for at least 5 miles and "whatever run/walk interval I was doing I needed to keep it up because it was perfect"…I tried to tell him I was just struggling to not die, but he yelled at me to stay ahead of him so I ran away.  I never saw him again—I do have a feeling he must have passed me though, because I probably ran another 1/2 mile but then I just couldn’t.  I walked up the entire hill, I walked as fast as I could (and I was definitely limping) but I just couldn’t run the hill.  I definitely lost time there, and then at the top of the first incline I tried to run a little more and it was just so painful.  Oh, and after the uphill was finally over, there was a ridiculously steep downhill right away…um, thanks?

The last couple miles were SO hard.  I’d run a bit, stop and walk, did some stretches, would tell myself it hurt no matter so I might as well run, and that was pretty much the cycle.  Mile 12 I was just trying not to cry!  FINALLY the finish line was in sight.  I ran as fast as I could, which I would imagine was approximately a 12 minute mile pace at that point, and crossed the finish just shy of 2:40.  Not my goal, not my greatest performance, but I MADE it. 

I grabbed my medal, two bottles of water, and staggered down the finish chute.  I dragged myself towards the area where Jen and planned to meet and saw her right away.  I was just trying to not fall over, and then I collapsed on the ground! 

Finally I got the energy to get out my phone and text Chris that I was done, and saw this:

I forgot I’d signed up for twitter updates!  So all my followers got to see my negative splits ;) 

 

After a few minutes of lying on the grass groaning and moaning (and stretching) we managed to stand up.  This was no small feat!

We went back to the car and the parking lot was completely backed up.  It took us over an hour to get out of the parking lot. This definitely needs to be addressed for next year, I think. 

 

I took some self portraits while we were delayed in the car.

The medal was HEAVY!  I was almost too tired to wear it around my neck.  I managed though. It was also pretty large.

We went to Uncle Bill’s for breakfast then.  I thought that eggs, hash browns, and pancakes weren’t QUITE enough food so I added the biscuits and gravy.  I would HIGHLY recommend the biscuits and gravy in the future, just FYI.  Oh, and I wasn’t able to finish all of this, though I tried. 

 

Later that night the celebration was a little different.  I used a fancy wine glass that was a shower gift.

 

Another picture of the medal, and of the long sleeve technical shirt. 

All in all, a fun and well run race.  I would have hoped for a better time and a better training cycle, but that’s how it goes.  My hip WILL heal and be better (it’s not exactly my hip but I’m just hard pressed to explain where the pain begins—another blogger has what I’ve decided is a similar problem (though I think hers is worse) and she referred to it as the leg/buttcrease area.  I’m definitely taking the week (or more) off from running, but I am PROUD that I finished despite the pain.

If you follow me on twitter, you could or might have seen my times for the race yesterday morning.  I forgot that I had signed up for the twitter updates (I guess I did when I registered) so it was a delight to see when I finished that Chris had been following along–

I had a tough race.  I had thought that I’d been running often and enough that taking a week off for Paris would be no problem.  And that might have been the case.  But then one week turned into two because of getting sick…and I think that was too much to get back into the higher volume running right away, so I ended up with a bit of a hip problem.  I’ll go into more race details later, but I finished, it hurt a lot, and I couldn’t be prouder of myself for sticking it through anyway.

2:39:40.  My lungs were ready, my legs were not.

We saw this trailer at the start of the race.  I’m not usually a mantra person, but this actually helped push me through some of the worst of it.  And knowing I’d get a cowbell shaped medal at the end and get to eat a lot.  That helped too.

If I’d remembered my splits were being broadcast on twitter that might have helped too, but I’m kind of glad I forgot.  That might have just depressed me!

Anyway, I’ll write a full recap later—I want to sit and reflect for a day or two.  I’m also planning to do another giveaway this week, so stay tuned!

I am going to take a little break from my Paris recaps to tell you what’s been going on in my life right now.  Okay, I realize you probably don’t care about my current life, but I’m going to make you wait a little bit longer to hear about the rest of the trip.  (Translation: I haven’t quite finished writing the next few posts.)

It will come as no surprise that I’ve been very busy since getting back.  Well, busy for me that is. Lots of teaching, lots of makeup lessons, and some working out.  Less running than I’d hoped since I’ve been sick…in fact, in the past two weeks I have run ONCE.  It’s challenging to run when you can’t breathe… but it’s great having that sore muscle feeling again. My legs hurt, my shoulders are sore, my core and back feel tight, I love it!

And…I wanted to share with you my magazine cover! For a race. Half marathon.  Two weeks from Sunday.  *gulp*

(I mentioned this before when the photo shoot took place.)

I’m running the Mo’Cowbell Half Marathon on October 7 and you should too.  It’s advertised as flat and fast, and that means “for the St Louis area.”  It should be a fun race!  I would have been running the Rock and Rock with everybody and their mother here, but I’ll be in Phoenix celebrating a little wedding that weekend instead.  (By little wedding, I mean, of course, the second biggest wedding of the year, my sister Leslie’s, for which I am matron on honor and will have to write an awesome toast.)

Now, don’t get too excited. I’m not the only one on the cover, but this is the first (and only, I imagine) magazine cover I’ve ever been on.  I was gloating about it to Mike (my trainer if you are new) and he told me that I was an idiot, that he could have been there too and so I should quit gloating, and that I am smart and talented, and have so many other actual successes in my life that he doesn’t understand why I am excited about this.  Well, Mike, because it’s different from my other successes in life.  Those are all related to my academic success, or my leadership skills, or my writing ability, or my violin playing.  This is related to my running, my friendships, and my appearance.  VERY different!

Plus, there’s a picture!  A real picture, glossy, and shiny! Technically, I could frame it, but I won’t.  I’ll probably just put it in a box.  Oh, and I’ve got extra copies.  So if you want one, I could sign it for you and stuff.  And then YOU could frame it.

The September issue of Time Off Magazine, picture taken by Sarah Crowder!

That’s me in the back row (because of height, really I should have been in the front based on awesome-ness), and you’ll note that my feet (the white and purple shoes) are even IN THE AIR.

From inside the magazine—there’s a nice article about the race and how much fun it will be.

There are more photos on facebook from the photo shoot.  I think this link will show you the album.  I’m sorry if that isn’t true (You might have to like Sarah Crowder photography, I’m not sure.  She’s awesome so you should, but obviously don’t feel obligated.)

Speaking of Sarah, I know I’ve shared this before, but in case you didn’t see it, check it out!  It’s me playing the violin, and my hair looks really good.  Gorgeous scenery as well.

And I promise I will finish writing about Paris:  There’s Versailles and Montmartre, and the time I fell down the stairs to cover.  I won’t leave you hanging!