I was excited at first.
In the beginning I felt amazingly good despite my frozen skin and elimination needs. It had to be the pigtails. After leaving lots of people in my dust I saw a port- a-potty at mile 3 and took advantage. I have never used the facilities during a race - even my 5 hour marathon. Then I got back on track and it took about 2 miles for me to catch up to and pass the pack I started with. I AM the badass I liken myself to be. Around mile 9 I just bonked. I have never had that all-at-once break down experience. It was like a fast leak out of a tight raft in rough waters. I began to panic and felt confused, honestly/really couldn't figure out why it happened. This was my 5th half marathon so I know a little about how to fuel/etc. Weird. So I surrendered to my race and my day and the state of things. I took a shot of beer at the 9 mile fueling station, also a first. I didn't stop running but I was running on nearly empty - simply out of gas. For 4 miles I clawed at the proverbial wall and never got over it. I did fight however and crossed the finish line at a decent stride to see my long since finished husband who after a slice of pizza and a banana was on his second bagel. Had I taken much longer, he'd have stayed for lunch. Oh wait, that was lunch.
Mike is a powerfully built weekend warrior kind of athlete who played baseball in college and has remained in shape with recreational running. He has several 10k's under his belt. He - no surprise to me - finished his first half marathon in 1:57:23 at age 46. He is tenacious and focused and it has always served him well in athletics. He can block everything out and just keep his focus like no one I've ever seen. He flies under the radar and doesn't even talk about his goals with fitness. He just does it. Sound familiar, Nike? He should be your spokesperson. Me - after 2:16 on the course I almost threw up walking to the car. I couldn't feel my legs and had no mental acuity whatsoever. And I was hungry. Because I am selfless and thinking about my faithful blog readers (thanks, you 2) I had our waitress at the diner take our photo to mark the moment.
Doesn't my hair look good?
Somebody help me. How do I not bonk next time? I'm running a full int he Spring.
3 comments:
I'd be curious to know how much you stuck to a plan. I think the main reason for a bonk is lack of training, improper fueling or going out too fast. Did you do long runs every weekend - in the end doing 10-13 miles per run consistently? Did you log consistent miles during training? Regardless of all the other stuff we do during training, if you want to run and feel good, you have to run a lot in training and do that consistently over a number of weeks. It's that specificity training idea.
Sorry you had a bad day out there! We all do sooner or later. But damn that hair looked good!
I believe that bonking is almost always a nutritional mistake. My second guess is taking it out to fast. So look at those two things to see what you can change next time.
Hey--I told Beth and Jason--there's a fitness bloggers conference here in Sept. (Balt) and you are all invited to stay here! Let's do it!
Couple thing pop to my mind... first, maybe next time after the pee break don't try to catch your pack so fast. They'll still be there. Blowing your wad to catch them super fast could've done it. Second, did you fuel at all during the race? And how about water/hydration? I try to hit every water stop even if just for a few sips. And I try to Gu about 4.5 miles in and then again at 9. 9-10 is my notorious tank spot. Gu-ing for me really helps.
Your hair looked AWESOME!!!
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