Ft. Worth Marathon But You Know Only the Half

Perhaps it was the mix of activities for Beth’s wedding or the fact that both of our houses have been a complete disaster, or that we didn’t see each other for a week, or any number of other things but let’s just say this half definitely snuck up on us. We didn’t even do a pre-race post! Whoops?? Perhaps just another bit of proof of our not preparedness.

Because we were driving to Ft. Worth we wanted to make sure we got to the race in time and especially since we had to get our packets that day!  Teal wasn’t even actually sure she had registered and the guy couldn’t find her name on the list… Oh, he was looking at the list for the marathon, but it was rather hilarious that we really couldn’t remember. So by the time we finished picking them up we had about an hour and a half to kill before our race started.  The different distances at this race are staggered by 30 minutes, so it was a 7:30 a.m. start for the marathon, 8:00 a.m. start for the 20 miler and a 8:30 a.m. start for the half.

Miles 1-5

Teal: We talked to Caron before the race and she had mentioned taking it 5 miles at a time. In my head that sounded like a good plan, I hadn’t fully registered that she was running the 20 mile when I decided that sounded great, and it sorta works for a ½ so I went with that. 1-5 seemed to take forever and I couldn’t really figure out why. I am usually done with a mile in about 3ish songs and by mile one I had heard 5. This was not registering with me. Apparently not being prepared also causes my brain to not work. The course was flat for the most part which made me happy! It was too windy to deal with hills too. The wind at points was rather ridiculous.

Beth:  I really didn’t have a game plan in my head AT ALL about this race.  I knew I needed to not start too fast considering the month of October I let my marathon training and mileage be all over the place. 🙁  Plus Thursday night I was hit with a 24 hour stomach bug. So I thought I’d just kind of play it by ear!  Soon after we started and I had turned on my runkeeper there was no music coming from it.  Then I remembered how I had turned the music option off in the app while I was in Hawaii, so I just tried to turn on some music.  When I did it was a slow song, so then I remembered how Thursday night I’d just put my music on shuffle during my stairmaster workout.  To make things even more fun I’d turn down the brightness on my iPhone to help save some battery life which means I couldn’t see through the two plastic bags I had my phone in to turn on a playlist.  My music during this race consisted of almost every slow song on my phone and Christmas music. Ha.

Miles 6-8

Teal: Still not bad but super freaking windy. I was ready to get to the turn around. Not to mentioned this women that had thrown her water on Beth was about to get my foot up her toosh! ( I mean I really would never do that) but she was that much on my nerves. She kept cutting me off for no reason, or running right next to me within like breathing distance. Sometimes Beth and I run like that next to each other but that is because we are LONG TIME RUNNING BUDDIES!! Back up off lady! At 8 I finally was annoyed at how long this seemed to be taking and the time not adding up so I asked Beth what we were really at. She said 7.96! Sweet! I had us at 7.41, so apparently my trusty little Garmin was also not prepared for the day! I actually felt a little energy

Beth: Um, yes to the freaking windy! Do you remember how at the Taco Run there was a guy that messed with my head for the last few miles of the race? Guess who was here at this race? Did you say the Mind Messer Man then you are correct!  I forget when but at one point we caught him and passed him a teeny tiny little bit, but don’t worry, y’all, he surged and he passed us! There was just this nice stretch of me being annoyed that he was there and with the lady who dumped the whole cup of water on me.  It’s one of those things where I get that you don’t want to STOP and walk with your water, but for the love, at least slow down a little.  Her technique of trying to grab a small cup of water at full speed was not affective.  At one water station where I didn’t even get water I was excited because she behind me so no water on me! Wrong, she spilled a cup on my feet. We should also mention that I for one ran more than 13.1 on this race course. Yes, I know tangents, we wrote a blog that included that in it.  There were a couple parts of the course where it split and was either a gravel/dirt path or a paved path and there were no markers to say stay this or what not. I just don’t like courses when it makes me wonder if I’m on the intended path or not?

Miles 9-13.1

Teal: My energy from that .6ish mile increase made me happy and until 10 I was happy. Then at like 10.1 I wanted to die. I had dropped a little behind Beth but just at the perfect timing she slowed to let me catch her! We stayed together until about 11 again and then it was just get home to the finish line. I could see the storm coming in and was just ready to be done mentally but my body just said, Nope you are staying at this pace. I managed to get in and done but was ready to die. My legs hurt and I was pretty shaky and actually a little dizzy. I think the fact that the running was off and 10 mile long runs missed made this difficult. Overall however, I am not disappointed! I finished with a clock time of 2:07 something and really wanted to find out the real time! I am not disappointed with that as it is still pretty quick for me!!

Beth: I was going back and forth on how I was doing and telling myself when you get to 10 it’s just going to be another 5k.  I kind of got pumped at one point and was like LET’S DO THIS!!!  Then at 10 I told myself to take a chill pill.  I was pushing myself too much too fast.  I was coming off inconsistent running and being stick with a stomach bug (a.k.a. not holding food down). So I stopped to find Teal because I was pretty sure if I didn’t chill out and run with her I was not going to make it. When we were about 2 miles out from the finish line I knew I could do this and pushed a little bit harder and at some point in here I passed Mind Messer Man when he stopped to get water. YES! All, I had to do was keep him behind me now! And I did! We actually talked briefly after he crossed the finish line. He was all – weren’t you at the Taco Run? Considering how the last month has been and being sick I am dang proud of this race, but now I got some work to do! We have another half coming up that if I don’t PR at it I better be dang near close!

 

Results:

Teal: 2:06:27, finished 17th in her age group

Beth: 2:05:15, finished 16th in her age group