Race Report: Lighthouse Run 2009

EDIT: I came in second in my age group! They’ll mail me my medal.

That…that was warm. I appreciate what you’re saying, Cory, about other climes being much hotter, but we’re used to something a bit more temperate up here, and we train most of the time in cooler temps. Mid-seventies is at least twenty degrees warmer than my favorite running weather, and over the course of the race, the mercury rose up into the eighties, which took a huge toll on all of us.

I went out from the start with other members of the running club – specifically, with the two guys with whom I’ve been running over the past several weeks. You know, the ones I said were generally faster than me? Well, the three of us made a crucial error from the start: we pushed each other. Too fast. We hit our usual pace from weeks past, which was just inappropriate for the conditions; I began to realize that a few miles in, and I said something to one of them. He agreed that we were going too fast, but did we slow down? Not just then, anyway.

Another mistake I made was to trust the race course for fluids. Last year, I wore a fuel belt, and I didn’t use it much at all. Of course, last year, it was in the low sixties, overcast, and rainy. I grabbed water from almost every aid station this year, sipping as much as I could, and I think it helped; after the race, I saw plenty of people suffering obvious effects of dehydration, and my hands and feet were swollen despite the sipping.

A few more miles in, and I lost both the guys from the running club. One had been hurting more than the other, and he fell back first; the other man finished a minute behind me, but I didn’t see him at all. I pushed as hard as I could, which was probably too much, but my times slipped anyway, and every once in a while I started feeling nauseated and had to force myself to rein it in. The worst part was probably around miles 4 and 5, which was both uphill and directly into the sun and with no shade to temper things.

The end was sort of a haze, with my mini-goals becoming to just get from water table to water table. I saw a few people I knew along the sides of the road, which gave me a little boost; around mile 7, one of the daughters of my church choir director handed me my water. Halfway through mile 8, the ten-mile course runners collided with the people doing the people doing the 4-mile Fun Run/Walk, so the rest of the race involved more weaving, but that wasn’t so bad, since the faster-running crowd had thinned out a bit. We were going uphill again, and I was hurting, so it didn’t matter to me if I was suddenly having to navigate around stroller-pushing mobs of walkers.

Heading into the finishing chute, I made sure to look at the right clock this year, and it confirmed what I knew: I beat my time last year by a good margin. The clock time was 1:21:23, and my Garmin gave me 1:21:10, which is close enough. I staggered coming across the line; thankfully, a friend saw me cross and brought me water. She also helped me find the family; the kids were hot, miserable, and grumpy, and so was Eric. Drank some more water, caught up with other running friends (everybody’s times were much slower than they would have liked), and then we headed home. I have no idea how I placed, age-group-wise, and I won’t know until they get the results online. (Refresh screen, refresh screen…)

I feel much better now, thankfully, after having drunk a bunch of water and eaten some leftover pasta with cilantro pesto (this is my husband; there are aren’t many like him, but and this one is mine). One of those guys running with me said afterward, “This is why I don’t have goal times for Lighthouse.” He’s right; you can’t predict what weather will be like around here at any given time of the year, and it has a huge impact on how a race of this length can go. I got a PR, but unlike last year, when I positively skipped to the car after the race, this year I think I’ll be feeling the effects at least through tomorrow. I paid for that time…but it was worth it.