Hottest Half

I think I must begin by apologizing for being MIA lately.  We moved, Doug went to Korea and sold the house.  In that order.  I feel like my head is constantly spinning with all of the things that need to be done.  Something had to give for a few weeks and the blog seemed like a wiser choice than lets say ohhhh parenting Chloe, :).  Ok apology over.

The above picture is Bethany (pacer from Lone Ranger and Rocky), Cindy (Tuesday AM running partner) and I before the Hottest Half today.  A month or so ago Cindy asked if I wanted to run this race with her and of course I said yes.  When Bethany found out we were doing it she said she would drive up from Austin and run it with us. So here we all are ready to get our tails whipped by some seriously blistering heat.  The heat index today was 112.  No kidding, 112.  Cindy and Bethany's plan to combat the heat was to wear these cute little numbers (see pics below).  Can you see the white things around their necks?  They are some sort of cooling things.  They soaked them this AM in ice water and then wore them the entire race.  They both say they worked wonders. 

My plan was to use this race as a training run, I didn't want to go out so fast that I messed up my legs for next week but, I wanted to get in some solid miles at a pace that taxed me a little.  The first few miles were a  mess and really hard to get going.  There were gobs of people trying to run in a very confined area and cross bridges.  After about a 1 1/2 miles I was able to get in my zone.  I was running around a 7:45 pace and that seemed to feel comfortable yet not too comfortable.  So that was that, I stuck to that pace the entire race.  It was a great course, it did have some shade and there was tons of water.  Some of the stations did run out of water at varying points throughout the race but lucky for me I hit them when they were full.  I made sure to drink at every single aid station.  I crossed the line at 1:43:03 (officially) and managed to get 2nd in my age and 52/989 overall.  Not so bad.  I ran through the finish line.  Tackled the Jamba Juice lady to get a smoothie, grabbed a ton of water and Power Aid and ran back out on the course.  I was able to meet up with Cindy when she had about a 1 1/2 to go and got to run a mile or so with her.  Great fun. Then when she started her kick for the finish I headed back out to meet up with Bethany. I was able to catch her at just about the same place I saw Cindy.  I finished up Bethany's race with her.  As many times as I have run with Bethany I have never run with her when I was the cheerleader, it was fun to be the "pacer/crew" :).  Dang it was a ton of fun.  When Bethany and I got to the finish we met up with Cindy and she said I had earned 2nd so we went to retrieve my loot. Then we all had a snack and headed out to breakfast.  It was the best way to spend a Sunday.  All in all was able to eek out 19 miles today bringing my weekly total over 70.  That is right folks I am back on track. Heartland here we come. 

Happy Running all!! Hope it is cooler where you live.