… and the post-run endorphin high is still running, or maybe it’s the fact that I’m wearing my pretty little finisher’s “medal”, and my sore calves are reminding me of yesterday’s epicness.
It is weird to think that Nike Women’s Half-Marathon 2010 is now a thing of the past. I have been looking forward to this event on my calendar ever since receiving a confirmation e.mail that my best friend Courtney and I were both picked from the lottery to participate in the race, which we entered on April 5th! Unfortunately, living in different towns meant we wouldn’t be able to train together side-by-side like we had for our first two… but, that did not mean we couldn’t and wouldn’t still enjoy our 3rd half together.
Not nearly as excited to start training solo, I officially began marking down my minutes [and miles] in the middle of the summer on July 17, 2010, and have been giving exercise my all for the past three months. Yet, not having my friend physically by my side meant I’d be training a little bit lot differently this time around. Rather than doing most of my training on real road [or trails], I spent countless hours at the WREC being a hamster on the treadmills, running lap after lap around the indoor track, pushing the pedals of the spin bike song after song, BodyPump-ing, strengthening and stretching. There were many a times when I was skeptical that this whole indoor training ‘method’ would even work, but it turned out there was no reason to have my doubts :)
What I did doubt was that I was even going to be able to participate in the much-anticipated race after running my body down from a stressful, sleepless week studying for three difficult exams. I pushed through – as I always do – and after a solid night’s sleep Friday night, I woke up rested. I decided to loosen up my muscles with an easy 28-minute run around my old college neighborhood before sitting in the car once again. Oatmeal –> showers –> Starbucks + gas, and Court and I were headed into The City to join the pink parade!
Once checked in at our hotel and refueled, we joined the gazillion runners standing in the line that wrapped around Union Square to pick up our race packets at the expotique.
The expotique wasn’t all that impressive; though, Courtney and I didn’t stick around very long to snatch up all the swag as us small town girls don’t do crowded city-life events so well. We did convince ourselves that we mustn’t miss the scene at Nike Town though, so we wandered around that zoo of a store before heading to the top floor of Macy’s where we happened to randomly run into friends from home at The Cheesecake Factory [another madhouse!].
Instead of making it any more of a hassle trying to get around the city with an extra 20,000 hungry runners at dinner time, we staked out a couple seats at The Factory for a standard pre-race meal of a monstrous serving of pasta, salad and bread. After much race strategizing and lots of laugher, we headed to our hotel room and got to bed at a decent hour for our 5:00am wake-up call…
Race Day.
I woke up hungry – yay! – and chomped on my SF-made 18 Rabbits bar and banana as I got ready to run. Court and I met up with my other bestie running the race, and we daringly headed out our hotel lobby doors together into the dark street lined with porta potties and a sea of people.
Are we sure we want to do this!?
The NWM is the 10th largest half-marathon in the world and largest women’s marathon & half-marathon!
We plied on through the saturated streets of anxious runners until we found a spot of pavement to our liking. There we waited for the next short while, gearing down for our trek across town.
We plugged in our ‘pods and started to get excited! We were doing this!
Strong. Happy. Healthy. Women.
Running buddies for life.
At 7:00am, the running got under way. It took approximately 6-7 minutes until we ran danced across the start line – faster than I expected! Courtney and I jig-sawed through the streets of moving feet together for the first 5.5-6 miles at a decent pace until I decided to give it a rip and give this race all I had!
My Run.
y-axis = speed. x-axis = distance.
Race Details.
I felt strong and comfortable the entire 13.1 miles. Well, I take that back… comfortable isn’t the right word. I pushed myself to discomfort on several occasions. The hills, for which I didn’t train for, were challenging, but defeatable. The beautiful scenery and wonderful, encouraging signage was a great distraction. The weather was ideal – costal cloudy coolness – so I really didn’t have much in the way to worry about.
I jammed through my iPod playlist and chanted positive mantras inside my head. “You are stronger than you think you are!” The time on the course flew by. It didn’t seem like long at all before I was passing the Mile 10 marker and stretching out my stride for the final 5K. The endorphins increased, my music got louder, and my feet got faster. There it was – the hot pink finish line. I wasn’t holding anything back. “Pain is temporary. Pride is forever.”, I repeated to myself.
I crossed the finish line of my 3rd half-marathon feeling accomplished, as I squashed my old PR by nearly 16 minutes!
Half Marathon #1: 2:04:16 [9:30 pace]
Half Marathon #2: 1:59:13 [9:06 pace]
Half Marathon #3: 1:43:21 [7:53 pace]
Smiling runners sporting their cute finishers tees [& a “baby” belly apparently].
Something else made us smile too…
If you didn’t know already, every single finisher of the NWM receives a very special blue box from a [handsome!] guy in tux and red bowtie at the finish line… only the best type of metal medal a girl would dream of. Of course I sported my prized, hard earned possession today :)
More NWM reviewing & race talk to come, as this post is already getting quite lengthy.
xo Hillary
* * *
I run to be… strong, not skinny.
It’s your turn!
24 Things I Now Know
What I’m Loving Lately {Summer Edition}
a PDR {in the pouring rain}.
my sneaky surprise.
A Starbucks Story
Congrats on your new PR! That is an awesome time!
That is an amazing time! I love the necklace, too!
Congratulations on your run! Fantastic time lady!
You are definitely such a strong, healthy, and beautiful woman!!! So proud of you!!! And how cool that you get such a wonderful race prize. I need to look into this for my next race.
Congrats girl!!!
Wow! That is an awesome time! I am pretty sure I need to look into running this race. Blue box? How cool!
<3. I'd love to hear about the actual route… (that is something else I wasn't able to click thru to on the website.)
nice job…amazing pr! so exciting! is a marathon next?
Congrats! That is an incredible time!
I get baby belly when I run too. I thought I was alone! :)
Haha, I think it’s actually my race bib underneath my tee ;)
It’s def your race bib! :) P.S. You are too cute — I love your running outfit!
Hey girlie!
I remember way back in Feb/March reading your blog and seeing that you were doing the half; I completely forgot until I googled Nike Women’s, and your blog came up! …I loved reading your recap. This year’s race was awesome — I enjoyed every single mile! :)
I hope you are recovering well. My calves are a tiny bit sore this morning, but everything else inside me realllly wants to run again! (endorphins for sure!)
I hope you have a great week!
xoxo!
Congrats on the HUGE PR! That is a killer time. Looks like you girls had a blast. I love the chanting of motivational mantras to keep you going. One of my faves is Steve Prefontaine’s: “To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift.”
Congrats on the impressive PR, and I’m glad to hear you had a really good race (especially with the hills!). I really want to do this half next year!
Yay! Loved reading your recap. Congrats on your awesome time and beating your old PR by 16 minutes! All of your hard working and training clearly paid off. So happy for you. :)
Billy and I are training and I’m SO excited to run my 1st half this December. You inspire me! xoxo
Holy Moly. You are like LIGHTENING, girl! Congrats!
Wowwwwww what a great time, congratulations!!! And what a super cool necklace!!!
YOU are amazing. And I love that last line. Congratulations on the new PR and just being a great athlete in general. I admire that!
I LOVE U SOOO MUCH!! March here we come :)
U kicked total ass, and I’m soooo proudddddddddd.
Love U, bestie best.
Congrats on a kick-butt PR!! You have improved so much!!
I’m super jealous of your finishers medal!!
Great job! Seems like it was a fun marathon for you. That’s awesome that you received a necklace at the end. It’s gorgeous!
All these race recaps are so inspiring! Congratulations! You owned that race – amazing finish!
Congrats on your fab PR! Love the necklace. Must have been a nice run around SF. Thanks for sharing.
Fabulous race!!! I am so jealous of your new PR!!! Great job!!!
I’m so proud of you too! Isn’t it satisfying to see all that hard work pay off!? You girls look so beautiful, strong and happy :) I’m so glad you didn’t fall on your face during the race! love you, mom
Congrats on the AMAZING half marathon! You shaved off more than a minute…nice! Love the necklace. :-D
dude… you are SO FAST!! that is AMAZING!! huge congrats on your PR and an awesome race.
I saw SOOO many bloggers who got to run this! I am SO going next year. :)
Which bloggers are these you talk about!?
Thank you for sharing!! And CONGRATS!! I am so excited for you, and it was so inspiring to be watching you, cheering you on during this journey!! I am more motivated than ever to continue to pursue my workout goals!! This post was very empowering, and makes me want to work even harder to feel the pride that we can see on your face!! Thank you again for bringing us along with you!! Congrats!!
Congratulations on your PR!! You completely smashed your old one — that’s awesome!! :) I loved reading your recap of the race. It looks like such a fun race. Makes me want to fly out to the west coast to run it. Someday… :)