Seattle Rock and Roll 2009

I've been meaning to post this for a while, but we've been on vacation, then we had house guests for a while, and oh yeah, my dog ate my homework. The truth is, I have not been looking forward to writing this race report. The race did not go well. Not well at all.

My doctor and I stuggled to figure out how I should be medicated for the race. I am by far his youngest patient; one of the nurses in the office refers to me as "That young thang," and another one asked me once if I'm still in high school. I guess that's what happens when all the other patients are 80+. Needless to say the doctor isn't used to treating patients who are training for endurance sports.

We ended up doubling some of my meds, but that ended up being a gross underestimate of what I needed. I felt great the first five miles, but then I started feeling queasy. By mile six, I was dizzy and stuggling to not pass out. And that's how it went for the last seven miles of the race. I kept thinking about the stupid blog post I wrote the night before, dedicating the race to my kids, and how I had to finish, and how if I passed out, they wouldn't let me finish. I tried dedicating each mile to someone I loved and focusing on them, but my mind was pretty numb, and after a few seconds I just went back to trying not to hurl and keeping the blackness away. It was pathetic.

I finally crossed at 2:30:19. I took a few steps and then just sat down because everything was going black. A race lady told me to keep moving, I told her I couldn't, and what happened next I don't know. I remember being dragged by two race workers to the medic tent. I stayed there for a while with my feet elevated and ice bags on my ankles (which felt soooo good). After a while I left because I knew Sparky would be looking for me, and what I needed was my meds and I knew they weren't going to hook me up.

So what went wrong? I don't know. I'm kicking myself for not taking extra meds on the course with me; Sparky suggested it, but I said I'd be fine, I didn't need it. I'm frustrated because I trained well for the race. I had run three 12 mile long runs, I'd been running 24 miles a week, I'd done hill work once a week. It was frustrating putting in all that time and sweat and then being so disappointed with my time. But I'm really proud of Sparky and our friends. All of them did really well, and being with them made the experience worth it. In fact, we're doing it again next year. Sparky finished in 2:05, and he wants to get his time back under two hours. And I'm determined to redeem myself. I have an appointment with the doc soon, and we're going to figure this thing out. A friend of mine is a PT, and she scolded me after the race. "What were you thinking? You could have died!" I told her that I have to live my life. I'm not going to just sit on the couch of doom and watch other people live their lives. I want to experience things.

I know this post is a little long, but I have to include one last thing. They had a video camera at the finish line. And I was dreading how it would turn out - Would you be able to see me pass out on camera? I'm sure it wasn't pretty. I wasn't sure if I wanted to see it, but Sparky looked it up, and then told me I must have been praying hard, because I got my wish. Just after I crossed the finish line, someone bumped the camera, and you can't see anything constructive for a while (long enough for me to make my graceful exit). I tell you, it's all about those tender mercies in life.