Preparing for the next adventure...: A new PR!

In a last minute change of plans, I was able to do my half without stroller and baby. I was a little worried, because I hadn't adhered to my normal pre-race rituals since I figured I was going to be taking it slow anyway. I had beef, fried food, and dairy the day before! Oh well. I was not planning to PR this race anyway.

The kid and I went to the expo on Saturday to pick up my bib and goodies. We also stopped and visited the runningskirts twins at their skirt booth. They loved him!

We then went to a birthday party on Saturday night (hence the bad eating). By the time we got home and ready for bed, it was around 11:30. I was not excited about getting up at 2:30am...

I thought the tech shirts were pretty nice. This race gets HUGE props for having both men's and women's tech shirts! I got a small women's and it fits great!

My alarm went off at 2:15 and I believe I may have turned it off. When I finally woke up it was 3:17!!! OMG! I was almost in a panic. I wanted to leave by 3:30 in order to give myself enough time to get down to the OC fairgrounds, park, pump, use the restroom, and get on a shuttle to the start. I was allowing myself 45 minutes to get there. I made a last minute shirt switch, so I had to re-pin my bib. I filled my water bottles, packed my GU and chomps, grabbed a banana and promax bar, and headed out the door. I left the baby sleeping, as my mother in law was going to watch him (she was in the next room). It was almost 4 by the time I was on the road.

I made it to the fairgrounds in great time (there is no traffic at 4am on a sunday morning). There was no line to exit, and I got a pretty decent parking spot. There were real restrooms a few rows over, which was great (I hate port o potties). I utilized those, then went back to the car to pump. I gathered all my stuff and went to find the shuttles. When I reached the line for the shuttles, it was pretty long. There were about 5 schoolbuses, though, so I got on one quickly and we were off to the start. This race was a point-to-point course, hence the shuttles. When we got to the start, there were not a lot of people there yet. The port o potty lines were pretty much nonexistent! There were UPS trucks there for personal item storage, too. It was pretty cold, so I held off as long as I could before dropping off my jacket and stuff at the UPS truck. I don't know why I didn't take any photos of this pre-race area.

My co-worker and her husband were also running this race, and were being dropped off by a friend. They finally made it and we hung out around the corrals.

The national anthem was sung, and we were off! I tried to keep a decent pace, and garmin reflected a 10:30-45 average. Hmm, I wondered if I could keep this up? 3 miles passed and I was still hanging on to a sub-11 minute pace. I thought that if I could maintain that, I would PR! I didn't want to get my hopes up, but I had a new goal for this race now. GU at mile 4. I hit 5 miles at 53+ minutes and was still feeling pretty good. Around 7 miles I started to feel it a little bit. I fueled again at mile 8. There was a really nasty hill around mile 9 that just about knocked me out. I really started to feel my legs protest at mile 10. Garmin said my 10 mile time was 1:51...hey, not too bad! I just needed to maintain a 12 min/mile for the remainder of the course and I could PR! I took more walk breaks than normal in those last 3 miles, but garmin tried to keep me on track. I hit mile 12 and knew that I would be close. With 1/2 mile left, I tried to pick up the pace, but my legs were done. I felt like I was shuffling rather than running! At the 13 mile marker, garmin said 2:25. I was going to make it! I plowed through the last .1 and finished strong - official time 2:26:16! A new PR! My previous PR was 2:29:39. I was really excited to PR a race that I initially just wanted to finish. My co-worker finished in 2:35. Great time for a first-timer! Got several bottles of water, banana, croissant, and Snickers marathon bars at the end. I picked up my bag from the UPS truck, went to buy a mug, then slowly walked back to my car. I very nearly fell asleep driving home! I was happy to have run a great race, but would have been equally happy to have run a slow race with the baby. Maybe next time!

Some photos from the race. It was a very nice course! We ran through the neighborhoods of Newport Beach and through the Ecological Reserve. The weather was perfect! Not too hot and not too cold. In fact, it was more on the cool side, which was nice! The water stops were sufficient, although I always carry my own water too. Also wanted to give 2 thumbs up to my fabulous floral running skirt! I think it helped me to my PR!