Race Recap - Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon

Here we are back at Monday. How does this happen so quickly? I swear it was just Friday...

When I left you, I was stressing out about the weather for my race on Saturday. Friday was just absolutely gorgeous, so it was hard to believe that we'd have thunderstorms in just 12 short hours. My theme for the day was "Let go & Let God". I really wanted to stop stressing about it, and just go through the motions. So that's what we did.

Friday afternoon, hubby and I packed up and headed to Duluth. We checked into our hotel, then popped over to one of our favorite restaurants in Duluth for dinner, Sara's Table at Chester Creek Cafe. I am not one of those runners who can gobble down spaghetti the night before a race. Instead, I typically eat fish, veggies, and some kind of whole grain. When eating out, that can get tricky. But I found a nice salad on their menu that had trout, lots of veggies, and I asked for a roll on the side. That seemed to be an excellent choice come Saturday morning. No tummy troubles, and I was actually a little hungry.

Sat morning I woke up at 3:15am. Holy cow is that early! I like to allow myself plenty of time to get ready, and we had to be on the buses by 5am to get transported to the start line. I was pleasantly surprised to see that it wasn't raining yet, and the rain was suppose to hold off. But...now what do I wear? I decided to wear my rain jacket anyway, just in case. Very wise decision...

I met up with a fellow runner from my club at the start line, and we ran together for the first few miles. It was humid, and a tad warm at 60 (I know that's not *warm*, but for 6:15am, that's warm). She ended up falling back a little and we separated around mile 4. The rain started right around mile 3, so I was really glad to have my jacket. It drizzled for the rest of the race, but never more than just a drizzle. I also put duct tape on my shoes, over the mesh parts, but that just fell off once it started getting wet.

I started to hit the wall right around mile 6. Not good. Not good at all. Just as we started running back into town, it seemed to be much more humid, and it was harder for me to keep the pace. I was running a tad fast at the beginning, and now I started to pay for it. My pace slipped from 8:30 min/mile to just under 8:40. Not much of a difference, but that was real work. There's a couple of hills in mile 9 that slowed me down again. Even though I brought my gels, and took them at appropriate intervals, I still had to supplement with a little Powerade from the aid station, and an orange slice - which actually tasted amazing!

I was able to kick it back into gear around mile 11, get over the last hill, and then power into the finish. I tried to run that last mile as fast as I could, but there are a lot of turns as you head into Canal Park and the finish line which slowed me down. My finish time was 1:52:59. 14 seconds slower than my PR, but definitely acceptable on what was a really tough day for me.

Overall, I'm proud of my effort for this race. Even though it started getting tough for me, I didn't back down and held a good pace. Mentally, I rocked this race. I just kept telling myself to shut up and keep going. Breaking things up once I started getting tired helped as well. "Three more miles until Lemon Drop Hill. That will be nice to use your legs differently!" "One more mile until the grocery store where we turn!" "Once you hit the cobblestone, there's only 2 miles left!"

So, one race down for the summer. Onwards!

What do you do when you're having a tough race? Do you eat weird foods from the aid stations?