No PR

I write this posting with mixed emotion. While, I came no where close to a PR yesterday (which I will get to in a moment), the course was beautiful. I had run most of the Parks course in segments in advance of the race. But running it all at once was stunning. Minus a little pushing and shoving right when you entered the park path, it was a great course for a race.

The down side: I ran with my pace group (9:30/min. mile) for a good 4.5 miles of the course. Then I was a couple seconds behind that until the 6 mile marker, at which point I felt sick beyond belief. I think I finally made it to a port-o-potty at mile 8. I then waited in a 5 person deep line. ugh. Who waits in line for a stinky port-o-potty?! After about a 10 minute or so detour, I was back on the course. Dumping water on myself at every water station to follow (it was 90+ degrees). Honestly, no idea how I managed to cross the finish line still running. Or how I managed to jog the last three miles of the course after my "incident."

Why did this happen? I've begun to process the situation, as I would like to run more half marathons in my life. (nope, I'm not giving up after this horrible experience). So here is a list of things I would do differently for half #3:
1. Do not sit outside in 90+ degree weather the entire day before
2. Use the port-0-potty multiple times before the race begins (just keep standing in line... yes, this is gross, but part of the racing experience).
3. On hot days, go a little slower than my pace group for the first half
4. Don't skip fluid stations
5. SLEEP! I did nothing good for my body leading up to this race. I had something going on every night this week and clearly did not sleep well. Before my last half, I completely shut down the week before the race, coming home every night and getting in bed by 8:30 or 9pm.
6. As for my stomach... still trying to figure out how to avoid stopping during a race. This has never happened to me during a race or a long training run (happened during shorter runs, thank god for gas stations).

T minus three weeks until the Army 10 Miler! Stayed tuned...