Slow & Steady Wins the Race :-)

Did the Atlanta Half Marathon today with Leandrea, and met our goals of both finishing and finishing without a broken ankle!  Yippee!  It was almost exactly a year ago (April 5) when I broke my ankle in the Portland Half and I've been having major anxiety about this all week so I'm glad its done and all is well.  Though I think I may have killed Leandrea.  Second person I have dragged along and killed their knee!  I'M SORRY LEANDREA!  But you did AWESOME!  Her first half and she killed it.  If not for the bathroom break I think we definitely would have been under 2 hours.

The bad: This course was hilly.  Only one hill that was bad, but "rolling hills" the whole entire way.  We were either going up hill or down hill it seemed almost the whole time, which is probably why L's knee hurt so bad.  The weather was fine, rained lightly about half the time, about 80% humidity and 58 degrees or so. Luckily the horrible pouring rain, thunder, and lightning waited until the afternoon, or that would have been terrible and brought on the "black flags" they told us about.  I didn't have music, just Harry Potter, and even though I charged my Garmin right before I left on the trip somehow it must have been on this whole time or something because it was dead.  Luckily L had hers and this was the first race I've done where they had running digital clocks at all the mile markers.  I wore brand new shoes for the first time, which was stupid and I knew it, and my right achilles was super tight and hurting for a few miles probably because of that.  Bathroom break around mile 10 that took at least a minute or 2.  I drank a little too much champagne at a wedding the night before but it didn't seem to hurt me! :-)  Not so much bad, all in all!

The good: We finished!  And I felt good.  I had no idea we were going that fast in the beginning, it just felt good and we were cruising along so we stuck with it.  But I have not been running 8's in any of my training runs so this was fast!  I felt good though and though my legs were getting tired I think I could have finished at this pace.  I pretty much killed L after mile 10, I felt so bad!  Took at Gu at mile 6 and 10, and gatorade and water at every aid station.  The spectators were great and lots of dogs and kids along the route, which I liked.  Not exactly scenic but we ran through some pretty old neighborhoods, by some cool churches, through some parks, and through Georgia Tech. 

We did a poor job of running the tangents I guess, and there were 18,000 people in this race so LOTS of weaving.  It was never not congested the whole entire time.  Garmin says we did 13.26 so our average is 9:09 according to that.  So the splits are a little off because of this.

Total Ascent: 2,102 (yep, hilly!)

TT: 2:01:12 (chip time, was about 5 minutes behind the gun)  

Splits:  8:55, 8:50, 8:39, 9:10, 8:44, 8:50, 9:00, 8:50, 8:43, 10:06 (bathroom), 9:50, 9:59, 9:16, 8:48 (.26) 

Ran home from Alyssa's gymnastics place, then an extra lap around the neighborhood. No Garmin since it failed me but mapquest said 4.02 plus the neighborhood loop, so it might be a little less than 4.5. TT: 45:00.  Haven't felt sore at all but my shins protested during the run, and that same tight achilles feeling came back.

Headed to the airport to head back to Seattle.... I wish Leandrea and family would move there already!

A little more than an hour of tennis with J.  I played horrible, I better somehow shape up before my match on Friday.  I did 30 lunges yesterday after my run and I could feel them today!  Big mistake!  

Was supposed to go bike riding with Jordanne but the weather didn't cooperate.  It drizzled to light rained on me the whole time, which didn't feel that bad but I was soaked by the end.  I really hope there's not something wrong with my Garmin, it was dead again when I turned it on even though I just charged it yesterday.  I also forgot to change it back to automatic lap every mile so the splits are weird.

6.25 miles around the neighborhood - 4 laps.  Still felt so sad without Cooper.  Luckily we'll be reunited this weekend!

Splits: 9:41 (3.26), 9:27, 9:38, 9:28

TT:  1:00:04    AP:  9:36

Played an hour and 45 minutes of tennis in my first match since 2007! I won, but I am out of tennis sprinting shape! Plus huge blisters on the bottom of my big toes, a blister on top of a blister! I was exhausted after.

Reunited with Cooper, so took him on a run around the dog park! 4 laps around trail, and a few laps on the barkdust inside the dog park so Cooper could rest or play, which he didn't rest! Don't tell J I took him so far, he made me promise I wouldn't make him do more than 6! :-)

Splits: 10:31, 9:46, 9:43, 9:32, 9:26, 9:21, 9:09, 9:14, 9:18, 9:39 (hillside hill)

TT: 1:35:50    AP: 9:34

Now off to play 9 holes of golf!  Happy Saturday!!