CRIM recap

sorry this has taken so long. I had a whole bunch of sitting around and doing nothin' to accomplish yesterday so posting this got delayed until tonight.

CRIM was crazy! I can't believe how many people there were at this race. It really felt more like a huge marathon than a local race. But I guess I should have expected that, it's pretty much THE race to do around here.

ok, so Friday night I carbed up and then went to bed eeeeaaaaaarly. it's so sad to be in bed by 9:15 on a Friday, but when you have to be up at 4:45, that's the way it goes. Got up super early and then headed off with Sunshine at the wheel. The drive to Flint was unremarkable, except that when we got of the highway we were behind a girl with stickers on her car that said, "Marathon Freak" and "Triathlon Freak". We figured, "oh, i'm sure she's going to the same place as us, and I'm sure she knows where she's going, so we'll just follow her." The poor girl turned directly toward a closed off street and then had to turn in the opposite direction and eventually got back on the highway. Sunshine and I both noticed that she had an Ohio license plate, and both turned to each other and said, "that's what we get for following an Ohio driver." We both kind of thought in our heads that there was a slight chance that maybe that was Elizabeth, but we both kind of dismissed the idea. Little did we know, we learned later that it WAS Elizabeth! HAHAHAHAHA! HOW RANDOM IS THAT?!

So we find a parking lot and head off to pick up our packets. picking up our packets was WAY easier here than it was in Hell a few weeks prior, although they make you wind through the WHOLE expo before you can get your stuff, which was annoying on the morning of the race. As we're waiting in line for the portapotties I get a call from Elizabeth and I have to promptly hang up on her because NO ONE UNDERSTANDS THAT THE LITTLE GREEN STICKER INDICATES THE PORTOPOTTY ISN'T BEING USED and I felt the need to take charge and walk past everyone waiting into an open john. Good Grief!

After some initial confusion about where we are parked versus where Elizabeth was parked ("near the Rally's? where the f*** is this Rally's?"), we eventually meet up with each other in time to run a few pre-race miles. Let me tell you all, Elizabeth is EXACTLY how I expected her to be. She is just this cute little ball of ENERGY! even getting up super early and having to drive super far that morning didn't curb her enthusiasm. While running a few warmup miles the three of us (Sunshine, Elizabeth, and I) suddenly realized that we were in some apartment community in the middle of Flint, and we weren't really sure that we were in a safe area (despite joking that we were sure the criminals weren't awake at 6:30 A.M.) so we turned around pretty quickly and headed back toward where the race was being held. We were yakking so much that we didn't even realize where we were going!

After another quick stint with incapable portapotty users we headed over to the start and lined up in the HUGE mass of people. It was pretty awesome to watch. and all of a sudden, we were off! Elizabeth and I stuck together for the first two miles, and Sunshine quickly got irritated with our constant yakking and took off for the other side of the crowd. :) We realized pretty quickly that even if we wanted to race this one, it would be really, really difficult to get around the mobs of people, so I quickly relaxed and just went with the flow. We also realized by mile two that we were already completely disgusting because the humidity was so high. ick.

I pretty much just wanted to hit MP, so around 8:40's, which I knew shouldn't be too terribly difficult. First two miles were pretty consistent, 9:04-ish and then 8:58. We picked it up in mile three and I let Elizabeth go on ahead. This mile came in at 8:39. Mile 4 I saw Sunshine AND MoMo, although MoMo didn't see us despite our numerous shouts to her. I passed the people handing out beer before I even realized it, or I would have made sure to grab a little cup. Having your race smell like a frat house less than half way through is unique (and indescribably wonderful), for sure! mile 4 came in at 8:32. I caught up to MoMo in the next mile and commented to her about the beer. We ran together briefly and then she surged on ahead. Mile 5 clocked in at 8:32 as well, so I was definitely running consistently. The next mile brought the worst of the hills, in my opinion. I had emailed a friend of mine earlier in the week to get the dirt on the course, and he had warned me to expect them at this mile, so I was mentally prepared at least (thanks, Jamie!). I got through them as best as possible, with a 8:57 split. The next few miles had some rolling hills, but nothing that was as bad as the initial hill that we hit. It was around mile 7 that I realized I could be going faster, and that I probably should be going faster, but I have a really, really hard time making my self push the pace when I get into a comfortable rythm. I really need to work on this, because every time I thought, "can I go faster than this?" I always felt like, yes, I could. I guess i'm just lazy or something. I DO remember that seeing the 7 mile marker up ahead made me think that I could make that mile in the 8:30's, but even at mile 7 I was having difficulty getting around the crowd. There seemed to be a freaking WALL of people preventing me from going any faster at that point. that mile came in at 8:43. Mile 8 brought more rolling hills and a lazy split of 8:53, which prompted me to speed up a bit for an 8:36 next mile. when I realized I only had a mile left I figured I'd better actually use up some of the energy I still had stored and picked it up a bit. it was also around this time that I looked over and saw MoMo! so we pushed it in a bit for the last mile before she surged ahead again down the brick road toward the finish. mile 10 was an 8:09, for an overall time of just over 1:27.

Chip results indicate an 8:43 pace, so I'm pretty happy with that. Most of all, I really had a lot of fun during this race. Around mile 6 I looked around at the course and realized how pretty the neighborhood we were running through was. The crowd support was AWESOME the entire race. People really get into this one. And even though there were a few challenging hills, the overall course wasn't THAT difficult (I think the run thru hell was more challenging) and I felt strong the entire way (probably a bit TOO strong, indicating that I was LAAAAAA-ZY!).

After the race MoMo, Sunshine and I grabbed some popsicles and water and Sunshine and I headed off for a few easy miles while MoMo and company headed off to do 6. Sunshine and I then grabbed some pizza and beer at the post race party and met back up with Elizabeth to debrief on how our races had gone. Some old man sat down at the table across from us and seemed generally amused by our entire conversation. He said that he had woken up that morning and had just decided to do the run! NO TRAINING WHATSOEVER! what the heck!?! The funniest part of our post race conversation was when Elizabeth commented that at some point in the race she realized that, "these aren't sissy triathletes that i'm running with, these are hard core runners!" hahahaha! the idea that anyone who finishes a half ironman is a sissy CRACKS me up! Sunshine wasn't feeling well, so we headed off after hanging out for a bit (you can see a picture of us looking scrubby post race on Elizabeth's blog). On the way out of the tent, two men who looked to be elites almost bumped into Elizabeth and we both looked at each other and she yelled, "I almost got touched by an elite!" which was EXACTLY what I was thinking. It's so nice to hang out with people who get what that means! OH! and we decided that we should set up a paypal account so that we can all donate toward a fund that would allow Elizabeth to just quit her job and run all the time. then we could all say that we sponsored our own elite.

Overall, I was REALLY impressed with this race. I had a really fun time, I just wish all my friends had enjoyed it as much! Well, and that it wasn't so humid, but there's not much you can do about that in August in Michigan.

The one bad thing? I must have tweaked my bad ankle (I have a weak ankle from a tragic basketball injury in 8th grade) last weekend on my non-trail-shoed trail run, because it was sore all day Saturday - despite not really bothering me much at all during the week. yesterday it was still pretty sore, so I opted to skip my planned 8 miler and iced it throughout the day. it's quite a bit better today, so hopefully i'll be good to go by tomorrow's run.