Brie Fit

Oh, dear.  I’m sorry it’s taken so long to get this to you!   Literally, yesterday I raced, scarfed food, showered, then folded myself into a tiny car for 9 hours, and didn’t get home until late.   Today I worked.  So.  Here goes.

On Friday, we drove all day.  The highlight?  Un-ironic truck nuts in Des Moines, Iowa.

We got to my mom’s house at about dinnertime.  She had our wedding video all queued up for us to watch, but we were more interested in food.  Interestingly, though, our wedding video opener announces the wedding of TOM and Brie.  So, there’s that. 

I also found this gem of an “About the Author” page from a “book” I wrote in school.

9 year old Brie would be really disappointed to know that I did not, in fact, become a famous oboe player.  (I did, however, play the oboe until I graduated high school.  Little known trivia!)

We spent Saturday morning basically doing what I miss about Chicago—we had brunch at my best friend Teresa’s house with her, her dad, and her husband, Marc.  She’s super pregnant now and it makes me sad to know I won’t be around when her baby is born!  But we had an excellent time and egg casserole and coffee cake was had by all.

Then we hit up the RnR Expo!  This was my first ever big race expo.   My sis and I posed.

(Running the race together was my maid of honor gift to my sister for being in the wedding!  Kind of sadistic, but she’d been bugging me to do one with her for ages.)

We saw the Brooks Carnival thing first.  It was a little creepy, but cool.

The expo was real big.

The highlights were the free samples.  I have so many mini granola and Lara bars I don’t know what to do!   Tim, Erin and I also scored free long-sleeved tech tees—apparently leftover finisher shirts from the Pittsburgh Half Marathon last year, but I won’t tell if you won’t.  We got on our way to our digs for the night and I snacked on the way.

I definitely do NOT miss Chicago traffic.  But I do miss the view!

 
We fueled up with an early (spoiler alert: important) dinner.  I ate half (spoiler alert) a grilled chicken sandwich and a few (spoiler alert) fries. 

I did eat this entire ice cream cone, though, at Bobtail Ice Cream.  It was awesome.  I got the Mr. Roony ice cream: vanilla ice cream with a butter fudge swirl and crumbled macaroons.  I’m a sucker for anything coconut.

We stayed the night in my sister’s friend’s empty apartment on air matresses.  We entertained ourselves with the few random board games she’d left there.

This game was totally not that compelling.

Anyway, we went to bed, and I didn’t sleep very well (spoiler alert) due to the whole three-air mattresses-in-a-studio-apartment situation.  Every time Tim, my mom, or my sister moved, I woke up.

At 5 am, my alarm went off for the race.  My mom took a “before” photo of us.  Pre-race, I had a slice and a half of cinnamon raisin bread (spoiler alert: can you see where this is headed?).

We hopped a cab to Grant Park, navigated the Port-a-Potties, checked our gear, and were off.  This was my sister’s first race, and she was SUPER nervous.

We decided beforehand that we’d start together, and then I’d take off.  My sister wasn’t as trained as I was because SHE has a TWIN blistersquatch (literally the exact same thing), and I didn’t want her to burn out feeling like she had to keep up with me.   I was planning slightly under 10:00 minute miles, she was shooting for 12:00 miles.  We ran a mile together and then I peeled off.

Miles 1-5 were strong.  I didn’t stop for water because I had my handheld bottle, and I was cruising.  My feet felt great, but I was worried about my pace because my Garmin was flipping out thanks to running through tunnels and around tall buildings.  I would be allegedly running a 12:00 mile one second, and a 6:00 mile the next.  Yeah, right.

At mile 5, I could feel myself starting to lose energy, FAST, so I took my Gu.  It helped and I made it through about mile 6.5 before I started to slip again.  Fast.

I started getting the chills, feeling clammy, and I just tanked.  My legs felt like bricks.  I was completely fine otherwise—I wasn’t breathing hard, I just had no gas left in the tank.

Miles 6.5-9 were desperate.  I did a lot of walk-running.  I slowed a LOT and lost a lot of time.  I was absolutely not sure how I was going to finish.  It was brutal.  It was the weirdest thing—I felt fine physically; legs and feet were good, no asthma issues, but I just had no energy, even though I took water and Cytomax at every damn aid station. 

At Mile 9, I happened to look over and saw my sister.  I seriously could have cried I was so happy.  She was shocked to see me, but she was doing GREAT!  She had been plugging along jogging 12 minute miles the whole time and I told her I was struggling.  At that point we agreed to finish together, no matter what.

At Mile 9, we also entered the HOT part of the course.  There was very little shade.  It was humid.  It wasn’t particularly hot that day, but the sun was pretty strong, and the water stops got fewer and further between.  My handheld bottle was also empty.  Thankfully, there was a Gu stop, and that seemed to perk me up a bit.

All I really remember from miles 10 and 11 was a glorious, glorious aid station with ice-soaked sponges.  My God, that was fantastic.  I jogged along with my sister, not fast, but steady, with very little walking.  We didn’t talk much, but I did NOT want to lose her at that point.

At Mile 12 we started counting down.  My sister’s hands went numb.  At mile 12.5 I began to seriously focus on putting one foot in front of the other. 

We crossed the finish line hand in hand.  I’ve never felt so close to my sister—I helped her get over her nerves at the beginning, and she helped me cross the finish line.  It was a beautiful moment.

Here’s Tim’s finish line video from my Sony Bloggie camera!  (Note: I’m not in this.  This is just video from the finish line, generally.)

Unfortunately, the moment we crossed and started walking I felt myself start to go down.  About 5 feet past the finish line, I started stumbling like a drunk and knew that if I didn’t sit down immediately I’d be cracking my head open on the pavement in about 10 seconds.

I sat down on the curb and immediately a RnR staff person asked if I needed a medic. I kind of couldn’t talk right away and she started hounding met to get up and get out of the way.   It was unpleasant.  I get the need to efficiently move people out of the way post-race, but a) be nice to the person who is currently about to pass out and b) if I can’t physically answer your question or stand of my own volition, call the damn medic, you know?

Again, thanks to my sister, I stumbled out of the chute and somehow collapsed against a tree for awhile. 

The darling Tim doused me in cold water until I could finally sit up.  Eventually I was able to stand and we staggered over to track down some food.  The crowds were insane and all I could get my hands on was a bottle of Cytomax (nicked from the medical tent).

A few finish-line-ish pictures, taken about 20 minutes after we finished and I was able to stand again.

Our final chip time was 2:33:33, a full 20 minutes slower than my last half marathon.  Am I disappointed in that?  Well, yeah, somewhat.  I’d be a liar if I was all, “I’m just happy I finished!”  When I think, “hey, your time was 20 minutes slower, that sucks,” I get a little sad.

But, honestly, by the end of this race, I didn’t really care about my time—in retrospect I was clearly exhausted (travel+very little sleep+air mattresses) and underfueled (only two meals the day before+early, small dinner+small breakfast with no carbs or fat).   I am legitimately happy I finished (despite the lingering time comparison/regret) and I am so, so happy I was able to do this with my sister.

Post-race, I shoved ice in my bra, got in a taxi, ate a Panera bagel, rinsed in the shower and folded myself in my tiny Corolla with Tim for the drive home.   With compression sleeves, of course.

My post-race recovery dinner involved Culver’s Cheese Curds.  When in Iowa, right?

We got home late-ish last night and I was (am) exhausted. 

Today, I kind of feel like I was hit by a truck.  I’m going to be down another toenail or two soon (bringing the grand total of missing toenails to four), I have an eye twitch that won’t go away, and I have a large cluster of broken blood vessels on my chest that appeared during the race (anyone able to explain that one?).   The 9 hour drive and not being able to stretch my legs at all means I’m incredibly sore and stiff and I would do bad, bad things for a professional massage right now. 

But, I am very, very proud of my new additions to my race bib board.

Also…the winner of my Macaroni Grill giveaway is comment #8, Shelby at Eat, Drink, Run!  Congrats, Shelby!  E-mail me your address and phone number and I’ll get that out to you!