the 13.1 half.

last sunday, devon and i did the 13.1 half marathon in chicago. the starting point was the south shore cultural center located at the beginning of the lakefront path way down south - a place i had never been before so i was looking forward to seeing the area on a nice 13.1 jog.

since i knew nothing about the s.s.c.c., i thought i'd share a blurb from the website:

The South Shore Cultural Center, a 65-acre park with a golf course, tennis courts, a bathing beach, and an impressive building, originated as the South Shore Country Club. In 1905, Lawrence Heyworth, president of the downtown Chicago Athletic Club, envisioned an exclusive club with a "country setting." Heyworth selected unimproved south lakefront property, often used for fishing and duck hunting, for the new country club.


i had a wake up call for 3:30am - i knew i'd hit snooze, plus it takes me 12x as long to get ready in the am even if i have everything laid out and ready to go. it's ridiculous and i know it. but i had planned on leaving at 430 and i wanted to make sure i had plenty of time for breakfast and such. i ended up not leaving til 445 - i knew i'd be late hence the, i'll aim for 430 goal. the race didn't start until 7, but the catch was that since there is basically no parking near the center, they had buses to take us back and forth from grant park downtown. and they left at 530 or before as they filled up. so i was supposed to be there in advance of 530. awesome. we got to the cultural center around 6am. sweet, an hour! i found devs and we hung out and chatted and then headed for a potty break before the race. since there were real bathrooms inside and we didn't want to use the port o potties. we dropped our stuff at the bag check and seeing the long line for the ladies room downstairs, headed to the bathrooms upstairs. it's clearly an old building as the bathrooms are made for one person at a time. the line wasn't as long, but it sure wasn't moving very fast either! i ended up going in the men's and dev's the women's to see which would be faster. turns out we both got out at the same time!

we then headed downstairs to start lining up in the corrals. dev was in j and i was supposed to be in p? i think p. whatever, i hid my corral letter so i could sneak in and hang with devs. for being the first race, the corrals were very well down and well spaced in that they waited like 20 seconds or something before letting each group go so it wasn't a free for all and b/c the path got quite narrow at points. there was supposed to be a party meets the pavement/blues brothers theme going on, however i only saw a couple points of entertainment and the blues brothers at the start of the race. they need to work on that! we finally got to corral j and off we went. i hadn't even gotten to mile 1 when i realized i was going to have a shitty race. my legs were heavy, i was tired, and i wasn't really able to keep my intervals very well which made me mad b/c a month earlier i was able to maintain my intervals til about mile 10 and had felt great. dangit. i need to work harder, obviously.

so i passed mile 1, then 2, then 3... cursing myself for not having trained more or done something differently... then 4 and 5... and i think it was about there i saw the winning guy heading back (jerk)... (super super fit jerk!).... and then a few more of the leaders... holy awesome bodies...i mean awesome runners...anyways... i kept plugging along and thinking that i had to be getting close to the turn around point, but it seemed to never come. plus, i started getting super hungry. as in starving by around mile 5. crap, got a long ways to go before i can get food. and i didn't have gu with me. big mistake! seriously, the thing that kept me going at that point was ...pizza at the finish, pizza at the finish... and medal. i want that damn medal. and telling myself... i know i can do this. push through this and keep moving. time doesn't matter. only i knew i was lying to myself about that point b/c it did matter to me. so now we are mile 6... then at the halfway point (6.55), we crossed one of those timers and turned around to head home. i would have liked to have had those timers more often so i could see my splits for each of the 5ks or something, but no, just one marker. so then comes 7 (see i can count!)... and 8... and somewhere in there it starts raining...not hard, but still raining... it felt kind of good as i was super hot and it was very humid...but i prayed for it not to rain any harder and luckily it didn't... then 9... 10... i felt nauseous along the way too and i think that had to do with being so hungry, but i'm not sure...and then my mind started playing tricks - was this mile 10 almost 11 or 9 almost 10... thank god, it was almost 11 b/c otherwise i would have cried. i powered through 11...12....13....finally 13.1... and i crossed - the official time on the clock was just before 3 hours, but i knew i was faster than that b/c of the wave starts. luckily, they had bananas and cookies at the finish which i ate very quickly... and then i went to get my bag so i could call dev. but the line was a million people long and i was starving so i decided i had to go get in line for pizza. as i headed for pizza, i ran in to devon - yay! and we got our pizza which i of course scarfed and then wished we were allowed more than one slice! the line had lessened for bags so i got mine and we headed out to the buses for the ride back to the parking garage.

the bus ride started ok, and then i just got sick. so nauseous i wanted to die. i get bus and cab sick sometimes and i guess this was one of those times. great. so i finally got to the car and drove home, the whole way just wanting to be there already so i could lie down and make this feeling go away. i was supposed to go to the scripps alumna thingy that devon had organized and i had fully planned on going (to be honest, i didn't really want to go, but i was going to go and have brunch and support dev)... but at that point, i had to crawl in to bed. i put on sweats, socks, and got under the covers - head and everything. i didn't want any lights or any sound... and then otis decided to bury with me... ohhhh ok kitty... he provided some warmth so i let him stay. for some reason after long runs, i tend to get very very very cold. i didn't get home until 1130ish and dev's thing was at 1 - and at least half an hour away, which meant i had to get in the shower immediately and go... and i just couldn't. so i curled under the covers in the fetal position and slept - hoping when i woke up i'd feel all better. no such luck. i felt horrible the rest of the day. and i felt so bad for missing the event - i'm sorry again devs!!! i was so hungry, and i really wanted chipotle, but i couldn't muster the strength to go get it. so i made do with whatever i had at home. it was definitely the worst half i've done in terms of everything: time, running, strength, the way i felt after. yuck. but, i do know that i had a lot of fun with kelley and was probably not well rested and i'm sure drinking a couple fays before as much as i did was a bad idea too. i won't make that mistake again!!

yuck. i hate all of these pictures - i look terrible!!! but, alas... i am posting for your enjoyment anyways: