I ran the ODDyssey Half Marathon for the second time on Sunday. Last year I was 10 weeks pregnant. This year I’m 5 months postpartum. Same race but 2 very different experiences.
I love Fiona’s arm rolls
I’ll cut right to the chase – it sucked. I ran a 1:57:42 – a far cry from my 1:53:08 in March. And I try not to think too much about how far off it is from my PR.
I have only 1 excuse for my poor performance – utter exhaustion. In hindsight I should have never attempted to “race” this race. I should have kept the pace nice and slow – inline with my 50K training. Matt was away for 2 weeks and came home the day before the race. I had some babysitting help from my parents and niece but I was still exhausted. Fiona is a good sleeper but likes an early start to her day (between 4:00 and 5:00AM in the days leading up to the race). By the time Matt got home I was hurting.
My goal, as with the LOVE Run and Broad Street, was to hide the pace field on my Garmin and run HM effort. I was struggling right from the start. I thought it was the heat so I plugged forward. By mile 5 I wanted to DNF or take a nap under a tree (preferably both). I couldn’t get over how tired and worn out I felt. I knew I had to slow my pace in order to finish. I’d like to say I consciously slowed my pace down but, let’s not kid ourselves, my body shut down at mile 5 and my pace came to a halt.
Splits: 8:18 / 8:12 / 8:09 / 8:13 / 8:52 / 9:23 / 9:00 / 9:05 / 9:18 / 9:18 / 9:16 / 9:01 / 9:23 (hill climb to the finish)
Lesson learned? I’ll never make it through 50K training (or the 50K) if I don’t make sleep a priority. I felt like 5 months of not-so-sound sleep finally caught up to me. Totally caught me off guard too. If Fiona gets up at 5AM (her wake-up time this week), I need to be in bed (asleep) no later than 9PM. (And if you’re wondering, that’s her wake-up time regardless of when she goes to bed…6PM or 8PM.)
On the plus side: my pacing was pretty consistent, I kicked off 50K training, and was able to run a fun race which included a tasty beer at the finish (missed out on that one last year!).
Her arm rolls are the BEST! She is absolutely adorable!!
Oh sorry to hear you had such a rough race, but on the bright side, you learned your lesson and you will know what needs to be done for your 50k training.
Woof. Sorry for that painful race. I’ve run a half while pretty sick and had a similar experience. Sounds like you and me both think we can outthink and outrun exhaustion and illness. On the plus side, I JUST CAN’T with Fiona. I mean, she is insanely cute. Also, you look so damn amazing!
I honestly don’t know how you do it as it is when it comes to running and sleeping and getting back to training. Even though this race wasn’t the best for you, it wasn’t all bad! I think you’re doing amazingly 🙂 AND OH GOODNESS, those arm rolls. She is so cute!
Ahh those arm rolls – she is so cute! I’m sorry you had a crappy race, but I think you’re doing awesome. I’m such a baby when I don’t get my eight hours of sleep, so I’m very impressed that you’re training for a 50k while adjusting to life as a new mom.
I found this reassuring as I’m 8 months PP and still not sleeping well. Even when I run relatively well for my old self, it feels HARD. I’m super tired, still nursing a lot and I’m in the south so unless I’m running early, it’s always going to be 80+ degrees and humid until September. I had an injury-related setback around 6-months post partum. I just feel off my game. But it seems like I’m reading about so many other PP moms who are killing it! Great runs everywhere! Pretty lonely. So while I don’t want you to do poorly, it’s nice not to feel like the only one struggling. Here’s hoping it gets better for both of us.