July’s Race

July 12, 2011 by · 6 Comments


We made it!! We survived Run On’s Too Hot to Handle!!  Apparently we CAN handle the heat although it isn’t necessarily our favorite thing to do. 🙂  This post we are going to break it up again and let you get a recap from both of us and our different perspectives –

Teal:

Ok so that was definitely rough. The race started out fine, had to weave my way in and out of people until the 5k/15k split, but not as bad as some other races we have been through.  Beth and I ran together for the first part, but I really never saw her again. I was seriously fine until about the 6th mile when I could feel a full blister forming on the bottom of my big toe, I knew it was happening the entire time but it was starting to become fairly unbearable. Then to make matters worse at about mile 7.5 the damn thing burst after stepping very weird on a large crack in the ground while I was running! I was like, awesome, I am dying from the heat, and my foot feels like a tiny needle is poking it. Oh and I decided that another piece of important running etiquette is to seriously watch were you SPIT! This dude in front of me kept spitting, twice he spit backwards and his gross wad of a spit landed close to me. I decided to get the heck away from him! I managed to finish the race about 5 or so minutes longer than I ran the course in January but I was relatively fine with my results. I had to walk through a couple of water stations and definitely took advantage of the sprinklers at the last few stations. I knew I was getting almost too hot because I started to get the chills, which is never a good think when it is crazy hot outside.  We were greeted at the finish line with ice cold towels which was amazing. I immediately sat down and took off my shoes to see how bad my feet were. GROSS for sure! I felt a little dizzy and seriously hot and just laid down for a while, my favorite thing to do after running! I don’t care how bad that actually is to do. I had last seen Beth at right about the 6th mile marker, but I started to get a little nervous waiting for her at the finish line as time kept passing. At one point the announcer came on and asked everyone to stop talking because someone needed to go to an ambulance. Right about that time I decided I would get up and start to look for Beth. She crossed the finish line just as I was getting too nervous to sit and wait any longer! I was very impressed with her and our ability to push through even though we hate the heat.

And just in case you wanted to see just how bad my blisters were, here you go:


Beth:
Once we got to Norbuck Park, Teal and I immediately get in the bathroom line and then by the time we get to the starting line there are only 5 minutes to spare!  Race starts, we are separated, then I find Teal again and when she darts off to pass someone I think, “nah, I don’t want to tire myself out in the beginning, I’ll stay here.”  So we are running and I get to a turn around and don’t see Teal who should be in front of me.  It’s not until I see a 3 mile marker that it dawns on me – I took the wrong split!  So I asked one of the volunteers on a bike where I went wrong and she graciously rode next to me as I jogged and showed me where I should have gone!  She also commented, “so you’re going to come very close to running a half today.”  Awesome! In my mind I just went that’s it – I WILL run this!  I’d started the 15k thinking I’d walk a couple times, but now it was game on!  It wasn’t until I was almost at the 4 mile mark for the 15k race that  I finally caught up to the back of the pack of walkers.  It was a very humbling experience seeing the faces of other runs as I was the last runner for a majority of the 15k course.   Some runners even cheered me on.  The whole time I was running I was thinking “if Teal ever worries about being last in a race again, I will remind her that I pretty much was at this race.”  There really was a lot of shade in the Too Hot to Handle 15k and it wasn’t as bad as I made it out to be in my head.  By the time I had been running for an 1:50 I decided I’d run over a 15k I could walk for 2 minutes, so I did. And eventually I made it across the finish line.  When all was said and done my runkeeper app said I ran 12.4 miles.  Oh, and thankfully I’d seen Teal at one point and was able to tell her I ran the 5k first before doing the 15k so she at least knew what was up with me a little bit even if she had no clue if I would go ahead and do the whole 15k course too, which I did.
The temperature not that long after I was done running:

And then we brunched at Campisi’s. Buffet…nom nom nom! 🙂

Results
Teal: 1:36:14, finished 33rd in age group and 524 overall
Beth: 2:08:46, finished 75th in age group and 884th out of 936 (I think) people, but can’t we just say I won my division of 5k & 15k race combined? haha
Thanks for a great race Run On!  And thank you to all the wonderful volunteers out there!  Hopefully in the next month or two we will be out at a race volunteering!
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