13.1 miles - Helvetia Half complete

What a fun day I've had, and it's only 11:30. I didn't sleep all that great last night, so I got up a little ahead of schedule to begin preparing for the race. I had some cereal, coffee, allergy meds, ibuprofin, and a vitamin before I jumped in the shower. I started sipping my gatorade as soon as I was out. It was 6:30 and I was on my way to the stadium. I stopped at Safeway for some vaseline, sunscreen, and a couple liters of bottled water. I wish that I had done this the night before, because as I soon found out, there isn't much privacy in a Jetta to put vaseline on your butt once you get to the race parking lot.

I got to the lot about 45 minutes before the race started. I tried to go number 2, but my body wasn't cooperating. I thinkn that I was too nervous. I walked around to warm up and ran about .25 miles with my headphones on just to kill some time. There were a ton of people wearing red Portland Fit shirts that all seemed to know each other, seems like a nice group. I walked over to the starting line about 10 minutes before the race started, and sat down. I felt as good as I've felt in a couple weeks.

My plan was to run right around 10 minute miles. The only reason I wore a watch was to keep from going too fast early on. I held pretty close to that plan, but I was feeling so good in the middle that I had a stretch of 9 minute miles. They may have contributed to my final mile of 10:20, but all in all, I was happy with my pacing. I finished in 2:03:45. That was way faster than I thought I would run. After all, every step beyond mile 7 was a new PR.

Post race I feel pretty sleepy and my muscles are sore. I took a shower and I'm making sure to drink a lot of gatorade. My problem with number 2 has gone away, I feel the same way I used to in college after a night of drinking beer and eating pizza, the john is my friend.

I'm not sure what this is going to do for the marathon training confidence. I can't imagine running twice that far. I didn't walk at all though, which is a confidence booster. Time to be lazy the rest of the weekend. I think that I've earned a trip to Chipotle.