My Fabulous Weekend Part 2

After the Komen event Saturday afternoon my husband and I grabbed a bite to eat, changed out of sweaty clothes and headed to Santa Ana, CA so that I could run the OC Half Marathon on Sunday. Yes, I am crazy…

We got in around dinner time, got settled, ordered room service and I headed to bed. A 3:30 AM wake-up call for the race would be here before I knew it.

I went into this race weekend fully expecting to have a bad race, not that I haven’t been training, but, I was up for two days straight Friday and Saturday, walked about 20 miles those two days and was busy all week from morning till night with work and meetings. I wanted to do this race and finish, as it is part of the Beach Cities Challenge I am going for, but knew with no sleep and a lot of physical activity, it may not go well.

I was concerned going into this race on how it would all unfold due to a lack of organization I noticed with the race company. I paid $25 for packet mailing as I wouldn’t be able to make it to the expo, and 3 days before the race I finally received my bib in the mail (standard USPS postage) and a letter telling me to get my shirt after the race. I was peeved that I spent $25 for an envelope and stamp. But… let’s move on, I had my bib (unlike others) so that was good.

Race day came: we left the hotel with PLENTY of time to make it to the fairgrounds for parking and shuttles. Then, sat in traffic to get in for a long time, only to stand in line with HUNDREDS of runners in front of us and behind us waiting for shuttles. It was now close to 6:00 AM and the half was set to start at 6:15. The bigger concern, they were asking if there were any full marathoners waiting for a shuttle, that race STARTED at 5:15. Eek!! So, by the time we got on a bus and to the start line, we were late. After checking our gear, the entire race had started and the announcer just said, let’s get you all across the start line. That was it.

To say that race started hectic is an understatement. I chose to start with a 3/1 run-walk interval to see how my body would do. I did surprisingly well. The course itself is a net downhill, so when there was a decent stretch of downhill I gave up my walk breaks and ran the last 1.1 miles in. I finished in 2:29:46. WHAT?! With my exhausted mind and body? Sure did. Awesome.

The course itself was beautiful. Views of the ocean, quaint neighborhoods, nice parks. Throughout it, there were several volunteers sitting down playing on their phones not even looking at racers. The insanity after the race of standing in line for an hour to get my stuff from gear check, even more frustrating, I was tired, cold and hungry. It was 55 and cloudy. Then, we get to where we need to go to pick up the rest of our race packets that didn’t get mailed and received our t-shirt. Just the t-shirt. None of the other swag. Gee, thanks… and again, what did I pay $25 for? Oh, and they weren’t verifying this… so if you wanted another shirt, I am sure you could have snagged one. No list to check? I also heard they ran out of half marathon medals.

Charlene and I only got one photo together. 🙁 Usually we are photo happy at races… not this time.

Thankfully my husband met me there afterwards and managed a parking spot at the far end near an exit so we were out in no time. Some people sat in traffic up to two hours to leave.

We headed back to the hotel to grab a quick snack, shower and head out. Hubby and I walked around Newport Beach, grabbed a seafood lunch (yay!) and then saw THIS parked next to me:

This car is everything my dreams are made of… well, okay, the convertible version, but sweet beautiful car!!

We then headed back to the hotel so I could nap, then went out to tour more of the area, have some dinner and relax.

Lessons learned:

1: ORGANIZE!

2: But for me, I learned something really important. I was so mentally exhausted my brain shut off for this race. I just ran it, I cannot remember a single thought I had, other than how beautiful the ocean looked. I was up for two days straight and also physically exhausted. I ran that half in 2:29. This taught me one very important thing: PHYSICALLY I can do this and am strong. MENTALLY I need to learn to shut the heck up and let my body do what it does! I know what I need to work on, turning off the negative self talk and the I can’ts, because apparently, I CAN!!