Valley Harvest Marathon

On October 7th, I ran another half marathon. This race took place at Acadia University, in Wolfville, Nova Scotia. That's where my daughter attends university. My goodness it's nice in through there. Beautiful scenery. This was my second time at this event. I ran the 10km race last year.
The day before I helped cook turkey dinner for 70 people. By the end of the day, I was exhausted. I was really worried about how I was going to perform the next day.
The morning started at 6am. And rain. And pain. But by the time I was heading to the car it had stopped. The rain. Not the pain. It's still fairly dark at that time of the morning. The stars were shining bright when I got out the door.
 I was greeted just before heading to the car to a text message from my friend Virginia. She scared the bejesus out of me. I panicked when I heard the beep. But she just wanted to wish me luck. She's so very thoughtful. <3 And she's a great runner too. She ran her first Ultra during the same event. 50 kilometers.
I hit the road for my hour drive to the Valley. It was actually a fairly uneventful drive. I did realize that I had forgot my gummies for the race. And I was still worried about whether or not I'd actually be able to finish a 21 km run.
I arrived at the university and headed in to grab my race kit. Still deciding if I should just do the 10k instead. In the end, I decided to just go for it. And walk a lot if I had to.

As the gun went off the race started slow. I always hang out at the back of the pack because I'm one of the last runners to come in and I don't want to get run over, when I have to walk.

As I passed the 1k mark I was actually feeling ok. The first water stop was at the 4k mark, and I was still running.

I can remember if the second water stop was at the 7 or 8 k mark, but I was still running. That was freaking cool. This was the longest I had ever run without stopping. And I was feeling fantastic. At the 10k mark I was still running.

At the 12k mark that all came to a screeching halt. Talk about hitting a wall. At the 12k mark, you had to stop. Turn around and head back down the road you just came from. My body did not like that 180 turn AT. ALL.

I trudged on at a walk run pace.

Because I had forgot my gummies at the campground, I figured I'd drink the Gatorade at a couple of the water stops. At about the 15k mark, I hit a water stop, grabbed some Gatorade and because I was so thirsty, I chugged it. Ugh! Bad. Bad. Idea. It made me sick. Every time I got up to a run, I'd feel like I was either going to throw up or shit myself. I did have to duck into a ditch at one point.

By 16k I was done. I was walking the rest of the way. I did manage to get in a few more minutes of running, but my 7:24 pace after 12k turned into an 8:35 pace after 21.

What did I learn.

* Make sure I drink mostly water. Ease up on the Gatorade.
* Low fat, low fibre in the days leading up to a race.
* Always make sure to race with Kleenex. My nose always runs. And I'm just not into snot rockets.
* Don't forget energy stuff.
* try and figure out how to get my garmin to record my Km paces. I think it's a function of laps.


All in all it was a great run. I enjoyed it for the most part.

Moncton half on October 21.