Race Report: Lincoln Half-Marathon

Philip and I at the finish of the Lincoln Half-Marathon

Last year, this race went so very well for me.  I placed 23rd overall and was just one place shy of an age group award.  Pretty solid.  Even though I knew that I wasn't going to be repeating that performance this year, I have to admit that I believed there was a chance that race day magic would fall upon me and give my legs the strength to run a solid effort.  As the day approached, I was forced to accept reality.  This wasn't going to be pretty.  So--I was left with two choices.  Rip off my timing chip and run incognito, giving in to my inevitable fate.  Or run as hard as I could until I couldn't anymore.  If it were up to me, I would have chosen the latter.  Philip pointed out to me that evening that I had Market to Market the next week, and "Isn't that way more important to you?"  I chose to swallow my pride (sort of) and did the smart thing.

Philip and I decided to run together on Sunday.  Although I had completed every training run on my calendar, they were not fast as I have been struggling for the past few months.  I knew that I could finish the race if I went slow enough, but I a) didn't want to ruin Philip's race and b) didn't want to let my team down.  But my husband is so wonderful and selfless.  He said that helping me through this struggle was more important to him than a single race.

So here goes nothing.

I got up at 4:30am after sleeping horribly.  My parents had spent the night so that they could bring Quinn and Anders to the race to cheer us on, and allowed us to sleep downstairs so we could get some uninterrupted sleep.  I have long had problems sleeping the night before a big event and this was no different.  Which was ridiculous.  I wasn't even going to be able to race tomorrow for heaven's sake!

Anyway, we got to the race start a little after 6am for a 7am start.  Luckily our WRN jerseys are so bright that we quickly found some of my teammates. We hung out, chatted, stretched, etc. Ten-ish minutes before the cannon went off signaling the start, we headed over to our starting area.  (With so many people competing, we were assigned different colored bibs based on our estimated finish time.)

BOOM!!!

We were off.

I struggled for the first four or five miles.  My problematic quads kept cramping, forcing me to pull over to stretch them out.  (Poor Philip.  I told him several times he could go ahead of me.)  However, after we passed the 10k mark and made the turn onto the trail, I started feeling--dare I say--good?  Yes, good! Not rockstarpersonalrecord good, but much better than I expected.  A number of times, Philip had to request that I slow down.  So strange--we flip flopped our weak moments in the race, allowing the one to help the other.  Isn't this what married is all about?

So, yes.  We finished 13.1 miles hand in hand.  Together.  Reminiscent of our full marathon at Twin Cities.  But more importantly was the fact that, with the help of my husband, I was able to finish the race.  My quads didn't collapse.

And I saw a glimmer of hope that my racing days may return.