Last night I found out one of my neighbors was planning on running 9 miles out of the canyon after the half today, and I thought about doing that with her. But then I found out that RAD et al. were doing 5 before and 4 after, and I thought, "Self, you know you're not going to go run 9 miles after you finish." So I decided to go with them. Because I wanted the miles and because I knew that I wasn't going to PR anyway. I met RAD, Toby, Smooth, and two other people who were very nice but whose names I can't remember right now at around the starting point, and we went out and about for awhile before the race started. I was worried about finding a potty and meeting up with Eric (see how I put "finding a potty" first so that it wouldn't sound like I was meeting up with Eric in the potty?) so I just got 4.42 miles then (9:24, 9:14, 8:51, 9:05, ~10:00 for .42). Zero and Drop were at the start! I hung around them for the first mile (until they dropped back to spread the love) because they're kind of a big deal and because Zero was doing his accent for a bit. I was hoping that we could pretend that the whole race was some sort of wildlife hunt, but I know that's a lot to ask. They did tell Eric that they loved him. He appreciated that. I felt really good for the first few miles. I had had one of my yummy Triaminic-flavored gels at the start and one again after 5 miles, and after each I'd take water at the next aid station. After the first downhill I dropped into a potty to make sure the tank was empty, but really I could have gone the whole run without (yay yay yay probiotics for fixing the 2010 battle with the trots). When we were halfway done I started regretting the earlier miles just a bit, but when there were 5 miles left I had my third gel and felt good to go again (the gels have 50mg of caffeine each - how much is too much? Should I alternate caffeine/no caffeine?). The area was pretty, but the course was a little distracting with the ups and downs and twists and turns and I didn't ever really feel like I could just think about what was around me. I had read that the pacers ("pacers") would be banking time early on toward the golf course and so I was a little nervous about what the golf course stretch would be like. At the time it wasn't my favorite, but in retrospect I guess it wasn't that bad and maybe I'd do it again sometime. I was also a little bummed a few times through the race because I knew I wasn't being fast, but I kept thinking about a quote I had read on someone's FRB yesterday (I can't remember whose it was) about how comparison is the enemy or keeps us from our goals or something and I tried to just run Catherine's pace. At the end I wasn't unhappy with my time given the day and my training ("training"), and I felt ready to do at least a few more miles as long as there weren't any hills (7:57, 8:33, 8:01, 9:03 (potty stop), 8:39, 8:51, 8:51, 8:33, 8:35, 8:23, 8:53, 8:39, 8:35). I lollygagged around at the end with Eric, Elliott, my parents, and others before a couple more miles with the peeps from earlier (11:05, 10:27, something for .46 but I forgot to stop my watch) until I wanted to go back to see our FRBers win their prizes (I knew Melody and Lily were first and second in the 5k) and meet up with Eric again. It was fun seeing Melody - I don't think I've seen her for about a year and a half? and I was *so* impressed with how full-on legit athlete she looked. We read on her blog about how hard she's worked, but seeing her really kind of drove it home. And of course she and all the FRBers I saw today were so sweet. I love our FRB community and am grateful it has space for fast and slow alike. :) Later in the evening Eric and Elliott and I went out for another couple of miles to round things up (9:30, 9:17, 9:38 for .2). I'm glad that I get to be married to my favorite person to run with.
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