Stompin' the Grapes

I woke up Saturday morning and felt sick to my stomach. No, I wasn't nervous. I think the cold medicine upset my stomach. But, I rallied and we headed down to Canton to pick up my mom and then to Navarre for the race start.

The race start/finish was at the Perennial Vineyards out in the middle of nowhere. They actually had two buffalo on the property. I wish I had the foresight to get a picture of them. But, here is one with my fabulous mother!




The day dawned bright and sunny, but there was a cold wind. I debated whether wearing a tank top was a good idea, but it warmed up enough to justify the outfit. I'm so glad I went that route too, because I was hot on that run!

Mom walked with us to the start line. A little after 9 the gun went off and we were off running. The first mile was mostly downhill and the wind was at our back, so I wasn't too surprised to see 8:34 on my watch. That was the fastest mile I've ran in a long time. From there on out, I was pretty consistent at around 9:20-9:30 pace.

At mile 2, my shins hurt, but the pain went away as I warmed up. At mile 4, the by-product from my cold made it so I couldn't breathe through my nose, but thankfully, I could breathe through my mouth. My mile 4 split was 37:48. Here is an official course picture of me running (in the background).




Around mile 6, I kept trading places with this one girl. When we made the turn onto the Towpath, we started chatting. It was her first half-marathon and she was maybe 20 years old. I kept pacing us along until she dropped back to walk some at mile 9 (I checked that she did finish). For some reason, I just kept feeling strong/consistent the whole time. At mile 8, I was at 1:15:54 (still 9:30 pace).

At mile 10, we got off the Towpath and back onto the road we had traversed down originally. So, I headed into the wind and up the hill. It was brutal, but my iPod kept me chugging forward. I passed a ton of people in those last 3 brutal miles. One of the people I passed was this lady in green that I had been targeting from mile 5 when she passed me (she works with my mom, so it was a friendly targeting). : )




The last hill was the steepest and my stomach churned, but I didn't stop to walk. I made the turn into the winery and ran the 100 yards to the finish. My final time was 2:04:51 (9:27 pace on my Garmin, which said 13.2 miles).

I finished 13th out of 32 woman in my age group, 51st out of 141 women and 161st out of 293 people. Overall, I'm very pleased with my performance. It was my 2nd fastest half-marathon ever and I ran a very consistent and strong race. After mile 6, I only got passed once by a relay runner. Not too shabby for a random Saturday morning with no specific training.

The race venue was very cool. There was wine at the finish, but unfortunately I didn't see it. They also offered cheese, crackers, grapes, bananas and Subway sandwiches. They gave a long-sleeved running shirt as the shirt and a souvenir one-time use ChampionChip with the course logo on it.

Matt had his fastest race of the year too. We rocked it baby! Great to see Daisy out there as well (she snagged 2nd in her age group).