Strawberry Plains 1/28/23

My face in the race photos does not suggest that I was enjoying myself, or that I was happy with how I was running, but oh boy is that face lying. It was my game-face for sure, but beneath the concentration I was ecstatic.

I could not have asked for this race to go any better than it did. (Well, maybe except for spilling my first gel all over my gloves, I could have done without that!)

I was very hopeful for this race to go well and according to “plan” but I was also very aware that there are forces beyond my control and that at the end of the day the most important thing would be that I did the best I could, and that I didn’t hurt myself in the process. Racing and running in general have been so frustrating for me over the past few years with my asthma, it is hard to get my hopes up any more. But even so, I have refused to quit or to give up on my dreams. Finishing strong and successfully on Saturday gave me a huge boost of validation and confidence that maybe I was right not to give up, and that maybe I will eventually be able to PR the half marathon distance again.

I am not a fan of having to carry hydration and fuel during a race. This is, in fact, the first half marathon in which I have carried fuel other than Tailwind. I only recently started even carrying the Tailwind for half marathons, because I recognize that my body is fighting a big enough fight to keep oxygen circulating while I run hard, it doesn’t also need to run out of glucose.

My past few races I tried carrying my small camelbak with Tailwind, because it is fairly easy for me to sip on it throughout the race. This worked well, but I really didn’t like the sloshing backpack on my back, or the need to constantly tighten the straps as I drank the fluid.

For this race, I carried a 16 oz handheld water bottle, and put some B-Line energy gels in my pants pockets. (The espresso-dark chocolate-maple-sea salt ones are delicious. Or, as delicious as one of these things could be…) I ate a breakfast of sourdough bread, almond butter, and a banana around 6:00, and another banana around 7:30. Race start was at 8:00. I then took my first B-line around mile 3.5. I wasn’t careful enough when I opened it, and about half of it spurted out all over my gloves. I licked up what I could. I took my 2nd B-line around mile 6.5. I had a 3rd to take around 9.5, but decided that if it wasn’t going to kick in until mile 12ish, it wasn’t worth it. I sipped on the Tailwind throughout the race, trying to drink a bit more around the B-lines to make sure I had enough liquid in my stomach to help me utilize them.

While I decided to care about fueling after seeing an increased number of posts on social media about how you should ingest carbs every 20ish minutes during a long run for optimum performance, my main concern was my asthma, as usual.

I used my Symbicort inhaler just before leaving the hotel at 7:00. My doctor had told me to bring it to the race, use it right before the start, and then during the race if I wished, but it can make me gag pretty strongly, and I didn’t want to deal with that while running. So I chose to use it in the hotel where I could easily rinse my mouth out, and then I used my Albuterol inhaler right before the start, and again around mile 8.5. It is debatable whether or not I needed the Albuterol at all, but I have learned through trial and error that it is better to use it, than to wish I had used it.

In the 3 piece puzzle that is a race for me, fuel and oxygen are two pieces, my pace-plan is the 3rd. I am currently at a point where I don’t want to run any more miles than I have to, so I don’t warm up for a half marathon. I intentionally run the first mile+ as my warm up. This not only helps me not run any more miles than I have to, it also prevents me from starting too fast. Sometimes I even make myself use the first 3 miles as a warm up. I have been playing it safe for awhile now, so I decided this was the time to try and push my boundaries. I began speeding up after the first mile, and settled into a pace that felt fast but maintainable. I did not allow myself to look at my pace or elapsed time at any point. Every few miles as I continued to feel strong, I pushed the pace a bit harder. I felt the advantage of my weekly hill sprint workouts as I powered up each hill, and used the downhills to coast and take in fuel when I could. When I was still feeling strong, with no breathing trouble, past mile 9, I knew I was done holding anything back. I pushed myself as hard as I could, and picked off the people in front of me one by one. My breathing was getting strained in the last 2 miles, but I never reached the point where I felt like I was no longer circulating oxygen to my legs, as has happened several times before.

The finish line sprint! I was trying to catch one more woman in front of me, but was only able to narrow the gap, not eliminate it.

I finished in 1:37:28, my fastest run since this race 2 years ago when I ran a 1:35, and that was my fastest race since 2017. I was 77th out of 319 total runners, and 6th out of 16 women in my age group. The 5 age-group women in front of me ranged from 1:25-1:32. I run a 1:25 in my dreams, and hope to be able to achieve it someday if I can stay healthy long enough!

I am grateful for a new doctor who has helped me get my asthma under control after years of struggle with different doctors and so many different inhalers. Most of all, I am grateful for my husband who is my biggest supporter, my chauffeur, photographer/videographer, and shoulder to lean on (and sometimes cry on) when I cross the finish line. He has watched all my struggles with running over the past almost 5 years, and has supported me every step of the way even when I’m pretty sure he thought I was losing my sanity.