We scored a few free samples from around the arena:
Seriously, Cabot is my favorite kind of cheddar cheese, especially because it’s LACTOSE FREE!!!!
And then of course I had to hit up and sample my new favorite bar: Forze GPS Peanut Butter and Chocolate! This bar is to die for!
We meandered around and didn’t find anything too interesting, so headed out to meet Amanda and her friends at South Beach. Man, I forgot how much I miss the beach. Granted I’m only 45 minutes away, but Miami traffic freak’n sucks!
After some reminiscing we headed over to Lincoln Road to get my pre-race favorite and staple: PIZZA!!!
Amanda had heard of Pizza Rustica and we decided to try it out for dinner!
Amanda, Brit and I got the Con 3 Funghi:
We asked for half of it to be with cheese, and half not (for pour lactose intolerant me) but they read the receipt wrong and added Goat Cheese to one sides already w/ mozzarella!
The waitress immediately apologized and ordered up another 1/2 of a pizza w/ no cheese, of no charge, and we could keep the 1/2 w/ the goat cheese (which Brit and Amanda thought were even better!). How awesome was that!? And for dinner, I ate half of what was sitting there. And 1/2 of the other half later on. :) It was quite tasty.
We were pretty stuffed, but not enough for dessert! There is only a few fro-yo places in Miami (WTF?! How is that possible?! Oh right, GELATO IS EVERYWHERE.) and we lucked out that one was at Lincoln Road: Tasti D-Lite!
There was a special for double pints that were 8.75 and it was buy one get one free! Score! Amanda, Brit and I settled on the Brownie Batter and PB Cup flavors to take back home and devour. And eat we did! I added my own mix ins to give it a bit more bulk…enter Honey Sunshine and Cinnamon Grahams. The for-yo was just ok in my standards because it was way too fluffy…I like the creamy thick stuff better!
Oh well, still a great way to end the night!
We hit the sack around 9 and I woke up at the insane hour of 1.30, laying wide awake and exhausted until I finally fell back asleep at 3.00, but then had to be up by 4.30!
I started the very early morning with my staple pre-race breakfast of a small bagel w/ pb and an apple. I only ate 1/2 the bagel w/ pb because my stomach was seriously on the fritz, but I knew I was going to need the fuel.
We were lucky in that Amanda lived really close to the trolley that would take you straight to the start line for free, and it was only about 10 minutes away! It definitely took away from the normal pre-race anxiety I get trying to get to the start and such.
Brit and I were planning on running the half at an easy pace and basically just try to finish, which we figured would be around 2 hrs and 10 minutes…but you’ll see that didn’t happen!
So, Amanda was awesome enough to get up and be our spectator for the event:
Along with being our official photographer:
It was pretty sticky, heavy and humid when we were out there, since it was originally forecast to be raining by the time we started. But by the time we got over the causeway and into South Beach a nice breeze picked up and it felt much much better!
Amanda got some great pictures for us of what it looked like at the start. Check out all the cruise ships!
Downtown Miami where we started and ran away from!
For the first mile we did a bit of weaving and hit around a 9.30 mile, but quickly sped up and started clocking in with regular 9 min miles or less!
I was feeling good and my knee wasn’t bothering me, or my quad, so I was pretty confident at that point. We had some great entertainment on South Beach, including a very tall and bronzed man, who looked way better in bootie shorts than I ever have, with 4 inch heals, a long black wig, bright red lipstick and a bull horn. HILARIOUS.
We got to mile 7 and I was starting to feel sluggish, and then I hit my wall. Boo. I thought I had done a better job this time of hydrating and getting in some electrolytes by having Gatorade and water, but I guess it wasn’t enough with how humid it was, and sucking all the water out of my body! Lets put it this way, I was running looking like I was about ready to yell, “Raise the roof!!!” because I needed my hands to be above my heart and stop swelling!
I slowed down quite a bit for a few miles, and was getting a bit discouraged with a bit of pain in my knee and watching a man barf on the side (which had me way close to doing it myself) of the road, but by Mile 10 I got my second wind!
I was repeating in my head: YOU HAVE EIGHT LAPS LEFT! EIGHT! START HOOFING IT NOW WOMAN!!! So I started speeding up just enough to where I was uncomfortable (yes, you read UNcomfortable), but not dying since I still had two miles to run.
But by the time I hit Mile 11, I was all for running like I stole something. I was picking off people in front of me, and judging by my time at mile 12 I was hoping and wishing I would be able to make it under 2 hrs! (I had no idea really what time I was at because I don’t own a watch. Is that weird?!)
I sprinted across the finish line and couldn’t have been happier to finish! I was tight all up in my left leg, but just kept moving and knew it would dissipate. I actually came in a bit before Brit because I lost her for a few miles when she got in front of me, but then somehow missed her when she started walking and I passed her.
We walked through the finish chute, collected our goods and started walking back to Amanda’s place to shower off, since we were soaked to the bone! Not a dry spot on me!
My fab post race medal picture back at the apartment. I didn’t have a camera or anything w/ me during the race or afterwards, so hopefully the race photographers got a few shots for me! I’ll put those up when I get them soon!
Overall, here were my results:
Chip Time: 2.01.06
Overall: 2599/11251
Sex: 780/5830
Age Div (20-24): 62/439
I am WAY STOKED for where I came in, and especially with my time! I never thought I would have come that close to 2 hrs, and I beat my old PR from the San Antonio 1/2 Marathon back in November 2009!
After chilling out for a bit I finally settled on some food. I can’t normally eat right after a race and it takes a bit for it to hit me, so this was super tasty when consumed: PB, Banana, Mixed Cereals.
Brit and I took a short nap while waiting for Amanda to get back from cheering on and running with some of her other friends doing the full marathon. After everyone was back and cleaned up a bit, I ate an apple and we set off to the hot tub to relax our muscles.
After many thanks to Amanda and her husband for hosting us we set out to WHOLE FOODS for some real post race food. I stuffed my box w/ lots of roasted veggies, salad and more raw veggies, some brown rice, about 3/4C chickpeas and some nicely seasoned lentil couscous mix. I was in heaven, and ate EVERY BITE!
We picked up a few things and headed back home to get some laundry done and duh, eat some more food. I was ravenous around 7, after realizing I hadn’t eaten that WF box since 3pm! I started off w/ a pear:
And then two pieces of my Dave’s Killer Bread, w/ some Seriously Sharp Cabot Cheddar cheese, tomatoes and black pepper.
And as I type, I’m currently icing the crack out of my leg because now, 12 hrs later, it starts to hurt.
And to help that along, some dessert: Guittard Chocolate Chips and Honey Puffs. Nom.
I’m sure many of you read Meghann’s blog and read about her crazy race adventures coming up in February eh!? Well, I’m following in her footsteps, but with the races that she did last year!
I am planning on signing up for the Gasparilla Races at the end of February in Tampa, FL, which include on Saturday, a 5k and 15k, then a Half Marathon on Sunday! I’ve never done something as long as this before (the closest you could compare it to would be when I ran the Wild West Relay last summer in Colorado!)
I’m going to train a bit for these races, as much as I can with my erratic schedule, but I hope to break 2 hrs at this next 1/2 marathon! We shall see!!! I’ll let you know my training schedule as soon as I get it all together! It won’t be too much since I only have 26 days until the races! Yikes!
If you made it to the end of this post I applaud you, and give you massive hugs. This thing was a monster post!
