Sunday, January 22, 2012

2012 Carlsbad Half Marathon - Race Recap

Date: January 22, 2012
Location: Carlsbad, CA
Start: 7:30am
Finish: 2:08:01
Elevation:

Mile 1 - 8:42
Mile 2 - 9:48 <-- slowed down a bit, realized I needed to conserve energy
Mile 3 - 9:12
Mile 4 - 9:12
Mile 5 - 9:48 <-- not feeling well, wanted to quit
Mile 6 - 10:16 <-- bathroom break
Mile 7 - 9:19
Mile 8 - 9:11
Mile 9 - 9:11
Mile 10 - 11:08 <-- running around looking for a porta potty with tp on opposite side of the course
Mile 11 - 12:16 <-- took 2 miles to finally find a potty with tp, what a day!
Mile 12 - 8:54 <-- feeling a bit better but too late in the game to do anything about it
Mile 13 - 8:40

This race was the second time I've ran Carlsbad. Back in 2008, I ran the half in a time of 1:53:24, it was a PR for me at the time. No recap for that race that year because that was prior to when I started blogging regularly. That year I signed up for Carlsbad in an attempt to get the Triple Crown medal for finishing Carlsbad, La Jolla and America's Finest City Half. I haven't ran it again since as Carlsbad isn't exactly in my backyard. It is a good forty minute haul down the 5 South. This year I decided to go back and run the course again. I can't remember why I signed up but I did. I signed up way in advance and could not have foreseen that I would be "ill" around this time. Oh well, you win some, you lose some.

And here I am standing at the start line this morning just minutes before the gun went off. I overslept. Again. I accidentally rolled over this morning to turn off my alarm and fell back asleep until about 6:30am. Things were a blur after that but somehow I made it to the start line.


In case you are wondering, this is a good course in my book. A couple of rolling hills to make things interesting but not so difficult as to make a PR impossible. Plus, you get to run along the beach for a couple of the middle miles. It was a gorgeous day with perfect running temperatures. Rain had been predicted for race morning earlier in the week. I was so worried but it turned out to be a beautiful day. Sadly I was not having a good racing day despite the perfect conditions. In fact it was around the time when I took this photo that I first considered dropping out of the race. This was around mile 5.


But I kept going because I'm a lot of things but I've never DNF a race before.


It helped that I was in good company. I thought about throwing in the towel again at around mile 10 but decided that I was so close to the end that I should just tough it out.


 
Me - 1, Colitis - 0


So the day before the race, I drove down to Carlsbad to pick up my bib. It was raining. Ugh! I seriously hate rain. The carpeting inside the expo was sopping wet. The rain was coming down sideways almost and got my clothes damp from walking from my car to the expo tent. Hate.the.rain.


I made a beeline for the bib table then to the t-shirt table and then high tailed it out of there. I think it took me all of 10 minutes. Maybe 5.


I love that the women's shirt is fitted! Plus, on the back of the bib was a coupon for a free burrito from Chipotle. Yum!


Race #2 is coming up next weekend with race #3 following close behind the weekend after that. It's going to be a long month.

3 comments:

Monika said...

Too bad I missed you! sorry your race didn't go so well. I ran the half last year and for some reason I was having stomach issues. Not cramping or needing to run to a bathroom, just discomfort that had me walking on and off from mile 3. The hills when you're not feeling great felt like mountains! At least you got some great pictures. :)

Run Ciry Run said...

I ran this half last year. It was my worse race ever. My Garmin died, my GUs felt off the belt, the volunteers ran out of water after mile 6 and I got injured. I had to take a 2-month break from running after this race. Aghggh, bad memories! I stopped complaining about it after AFC and TCing.

At least you finished it and like Monika said, you took good pictures along the way.

EricaH said...

Congrats on finishing and good luck on the rest of your races. :)