Bad day at the Office

Yesterday was the Carlsbad half and full marathon. It was the first big half-marathon I have done, and the first half of any size in several years. The races I ran in Scotland had entry limits of 1500, were not always chip timed, the roads were not closed so we would jump on and off sidewalks and have to wait for gaps in traffic, and you never felt like you were running in a crowd. I didn’t really know what to expect at a bigger race like Carlsbad, 1500 in the Marathon, 8500 in the Half. I was very pleasantly surprised by the race, if not by my performance in it. 

After setting the alarm at a time that brought tears to my eyes the night before and dragging myself out of bed I dropped Alan off on the course at 5.30am (I have to iterate that this was his idea, I didn’t force him to stand on a street corner in the cold and dark). I got to the race start early, saw the Marathon start at 6am and marveled at the multitude of porta-potties available. Then I found a warm spot in the expo tent, chilled out and got my head into the right place.

Once my friends arrived there were the usual hugs, good luck wishes, group photos etc before we all headed to the start. When the gun went I started running slowly, in previous races recently I had gone out way too fast and burned out, so slow was good. Slow I managed, after the first mile I was way off pace, after the 2nd I had regained some ground but was starting to feel not good. At mile 3 I had a diaphragm spasm (very weird as I never get these in training), at mile 4 I was feeling unwell and nauseous. I took until mile 6 before I found a porta-potty on course and managed to feel a little better. By now I had given up all hope of getting a good time and was purely in survival mode. It felt good to be at the turn-around, half way there!

I managed to plod on getting ever slower. I saw Alan with his camera at mile 9, glad he hadn’t thought he missed me and wandered off. He smiled at me sympathetically and asked “Bad day at the office?”. I gave him a big hug and and off I went in search of the finish line, 4 miles ahead. We only interacted for a few seconds but it felt so good to be able to share my struggles with him, it spurned me on to finish strong. I continued on at my same waddle until my next boost somewhere between miles 11 and 12, Pam was cheering me on, telling me to chase down some cute boys. Maybe not, but it was great to see another friend cheering me on.

The finish did eventually come. My time is definitely nothing to brag about and 15mins slower than what I had aimed for. But I finished. And I still had a smile on my face. I’m not sure it showed to the outside because I was so tired, but inside it was still there.

The race organization was amazing. I’ve already told you about the porta-potties, but the feed stations were very frequent and very well stocked, there were bands all along the course and all the marshals and spectators were very supportive. I also managed to get out of the parking lot quickly and picked Alan up after 5 hours on the course. His photographs of the race are amazing, I hope he thinks it was worth it, because I certainly do. And I am so grateful for having that hug when I was feeling down!

Corina