2014 Publix GA Half Marathon Recap

I've been a little slow at writing recaps and I apologize. I still need to publish my recap from the 10K I did in February. Hopefully, I will get that up sometime in the near future.

Here is my recap from the half marathon I did on March 23rd, 2014.

A few days after finishing my first half I decided I would take the challenge and sign up for the Publix Half. I knew going into this that I was going to be facing a challenge....HILLS. I am not really a fan of hills. Heck, I don't think anyone really is, but I decided I was going to do my best and most of all...have fun.

After staying close to the race site for the Allstate 13.1, Jen, Brandi, and I decided we were going to stay as close as we could for this half marathon. Jen made reservations as the Doubletree Hilton. It was literally a block or two away from Centennial Park,which is where the start of the race took place.

Fast forward a few months and here we are at race weekend.

Saturday March 22nd, I met up with Jen to head on down to the expo to pick up our race numbers/shirts and to do a little shopping before heading to the hotel to check in. We also had made plans to go to Max's Pizza for a little carb loading with some friends of ours (Angela and her husband, Matthew, Jill and her husband, Matt and their daughter, Abigail, Brandi, Jason, and Katie). Had the best pizza and garlic knots. Seriously, think I will be going here again next year.

Lovely view from Centennial Park

After dinner we went back to Angela and Matthew's hotel to hang out at the SkyLounge before heading back to ours to call it a night.

View of the Atlanta skyline from SkyLounge

Before I knew it was time to leave, but we would be seeing each other the next day after the race for some brunch.

Since we didn't have far to go, I set my alarm for 5:20. Like always I couldn't sleep the night before the race. I am so anxious to get out there and go.

Alarm went off at 5:20.

It was time to get up and get ready.

All week we had been hearing about the threat of rain so of course we check the weather when we woke up to see what was going. Luckily, it wasn't raining and was going to hold off until after we were done.

At 6:20, we left the hotel. It was nice not having to take Marta down before the race.

Got to the park. I took my energybits, and ate some of my protein bar before going to gear check. After gear check, I said my goodbyes to Brandi and Jen before heading to my corral (G) to get ready for the start of the Publix Half.

A good thing about staying close to the race we were able to walk down 40 minutes before the start of the race. By the time I found and got in my corral we only had 10 minutes before the race started.

As I was making my way to the start line I kept telling myself to take it easy on the hills and I will do just fine.

....I did just that.

I really don't remember too much about the race. I remember getting to mile 6-7 and then 9. Most of the race I was in the zone and just don't remember passing a lot of the sites. I guess that's a good thing?

Soon I was passing over the "fake finish line" and making my way back to the park.

I was feeling amazing. I definitely felt better than I did after my first half. My legs were happy.

I crossed the finish line with an official time of 2:09:06. Not my fastest, but I wasn't trying to do that. I wanted to have fun and I did.

Earned my bling!!!

First Real Injury?

It seems I am experiencing my first real injury. On March 29th, I experienced some discomfort in my left foot. I didn't really think I did anything crazy to it. I was on my feet for 6 hrs that day at work, so I thought I just got knocked around some how by a dog or two. I decided I would take a few days off of running to see if maybe it would magically go away on its own. Unfortunately, even though I thought it was gone....it wasn't.

As each week went by I could tell it was getting better, but again not totally healed. I still kept on running because when running or walking I didn't feel it. I only felt something when I would flex my foot back.

I was even unsure if I was even going to be able to run my next half marathon. I hate dropping out of something. So I kept on getting out there to run. Pushing myself to see if I would even feel any discomfort. Nadda.

I did finish my half marathon. I even shaved 4 minutes off my first half marathon time (recap coming soon...hopefully). However, after the race when I was trying to stretch my foot out I could tell it was hurting, but again I was able to walk/run on it without feeling anything.

FINALLY this past Sunday I got Mike's Dad to take a look at it. He immediately knew what I had done and told me I needed to take 2 weeks off from running. I can still workout but I must make sure my shoes have some support in them for the time being.

So what did he find out? He found out I had a very common injury to runners and tennis players, and probably any one who pushes off their foot a weird way. I have "turf toe". Basically I have sprained the joint right below my big toe. Even though I thought I was okay...running was just making it worse.

Fun stuff, right? lol. I have to ice it two to three times a day for 20 minutes. I also have to make sure I am still taking my glucosamine and also my Wobenzym (enzymes).

Not sure how I am going to manage 2 weeks of no running, but I guess I will have to make due with the stationary bike at the gym for the being.

April: First Month of PRR Training 2014

This month is kind of crazy since I have a half marathon on the 19th. I am probably going to take a week off after the half but since I am still not sure I will list what I am suppose to do just in case I want to get out there for some slow recovery runs.

Here is my training runs for April:

2 miles - April 9th

3 miles -April 11th

5 miles - April 13th or 14th

2 miles - April 15th

2 miles - April 17th

Half Marathon - April 19th

4 miles - April 23rd

5 miles - April 25th

3 miles - April 27th or 28th

4 miles - April 30th

2014 Spartan Race Winner!

Congrats Meg P. You are the winner of the Spartan Race race entry. I will be emailing you shortly with the code.


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Thanks to everyone else who entered my giveaway. If you are still interested in running it, please go to the following link for a 15% off code.