Iron Horse Half Marathon Race Recap

Well hellloooo there.  I've been pretty busy these past two weekends. Two weekends ago, George, my parents, my aunt and I went to Midway, Kentucky to run in the Iron Horse Half marathon.  General impression = meh.

Let me start off my saying that I was pooped.  The weekend before, I did 16 HARD miles in humidity and rain.  That was my 2nd 16 miler, and it was rough.  So when the time came to do Iron Horse, I just wasn't really feelin' it.

We drove down to Lexington on Saturday around lunch time, picked up our packets, had pasta for dinner, and went to bed early.  The next morning, we all got up and drove to the start of the race.  There were maybe 10 porta-potties for 1,500 people.  It was beyond ridiculous how long the lines were.  My aunt was still in line when the gun went off.

Before the race, before George's heel blew up like a ballon

So, as my dad and I were in the starting corrals, I thought to myself, "I don't want to do this."  I don't know why, this was the original half that I had started training for.  The "scary, unobtainable goal" as I had once thought.  The gun went off, and we started running.

This was a figure eight course, (which I've found out that I really don't like) that went through some pretty Kentucky countryside.  Most of what we ran past were horse farms.  In the first few miles, we saw some BEAUTIFUL scenery.  There was a big group of horses running back and forth in their pasture alongside of the runners.  It totally looked like they were showing off.

#nofilter

This was definitely the high point of the race.  The rest of the race was more empty fields, pretty autumn trees, and the scent of horse poo in the air.  It was described as "rolling."  You were never running on flat ground, you were always trudging up a hill or running down one.  Not really my cup of tea, but then again, I'm a wuss.

I started sucking pretty badly at mile 10.  I was sick of running up hills, and it was hot.  I stopped to walk, and then stopped to walk again, and then again, and then again.  These were probably 20 second walk breaks, but they felt like an eternity.  I went into this race telling myself that I wasn't going to race it, and I was going to just run it as a FUN training run.

The fun part didn't exactly happen.  I was mad that I wasn't going to have a "good" finishing time, and I felt tired.

It ended up that no one really had a good race.  My aunt and dad weren't happy with their times, and my already injured husband became really injured.

I made George take 5 pictures, all with the sun in his eyes. What a patient husband I have.

I ended up finishing in 2:19:13.  I was PO'd with my time, 7 minutes slower than my last half.  But... here is where I start making excuses: I was tired, and the course was very hilly.

George finished in 1:41.  He was on track to break 1:30 at the half way point, then his heel started eating the back of his foot became really painful and swollen.  He shouldn't have run that race, but oh well, lesson learned.

ANYWAYS, that was my Iron Horse experience.  So now you know.

Did any of you rock a race this past weekend?