Yay! A new PR

I really stink at this blog thing.

My training has been lousy and my posting even worse.

The good news is that we went to Virginia Beach, despite our concern over the Hurricane disaster/gasoline shortages, and we had a gorgeous weekend at the beach and a great race.

Brian & I both set PRs on the course and my sister had a pretty good time too even though she swore she was going to take four hours to complete the course (more like 2:50).

My main goal for the race was to do it at a 12 minute per mile pace or faster which would have me finishing at 2:36 or better. My stretch goal was to finish in 2:30 (11:30 pace or so). I think that I could do that if I had a perfect day.

Sunday morning was perfect for racing -- slightly cool, low humidity. Just a gorgeous day. The wave start SUCKED. I hated it completely. We were trapped for 25 minutes before they let us cross the starting line. Usually it takes me less than 10. I understand how they didn't want to crowd the faster runners I guess but this seemed really horrible. I think I wouldn't have minded the delay so much if they didn't force us to stand smooshed together in the corral for all that time -- let us get in there later. I could certainly have used another porta-potty stop if I'd know I'd be trapped for all that time. Anyway, I hated the delayed start and I found the entire race to be far more crowded than ever before. I don't know if that's because I was faster doing the race or what but overall I really, really disliked the wave start.

The 2:30 pace group was in my corral with me so I decided to see if I could hang with them and hit my stretch goal. I was OK and right with them, or even slightly faster than them until the 5K mark when for some reason the road was smoky and smelled like BBQ. I slowed down in the smoky section and never quite got back on pace with the group.

I walked through water stops and found myself mostly running but taking the occasional walk break for the next several miles. I was planning on walking in Camp Pendleton because it's normally really hot in that section of the course and I thought it would be easier to walk there but it turned out to be nice and cool so I kept running. I did walk up the bridge around mile 8.

At the loop onto Atlantic Avenue I realized that I had passed my sister somewhere along the course and that made me happy because I knew she started ahead of me. Still, I was starting to lose some steam.

Brian caught up to me at about mile 10, right before the turn onto the Boardwalk. I was really glad to see him because I was tired and I thought he'd give me a boost and also because I was excited that he was having a really good race! His plan was to take it easy for the first 5 miles and then if he was feeling good he'd turn it up for the rest of the race. He didn't think he had a great time in him this year since he really hadn't done any fast walking leading up to the race. Anyway, he obviously was doing great and he easily turned on his turbo boost on the boardwalk and left me behind.

It was amazing that I had no juice at all to propel me to follow him. He went and I just couldn't make myself go after him. Very frustrating! I felt good in my brain and I was in no pain or anything but I just had no energy. I did the gels in the normal way but I think I must not have had enough breakfast or something because I just had nothing left. I walked almost the whole mile between 11 and 12 I bet. At the last water stop I doused myself with cold water and ran the rest of the way to the finish line. The cold wet shirt really helped me hang in there for that last stretch.

Anyway, my final time was 2:34:50 which I am just thrilled with. Maybe I can hit the 2:30 at the PDR in another week.

Brian finished in 2:34:15 so he's still the family champ.