Saturday, March 29, 2008

2008 National Half Marathon

Finished the National Half Marathon in Washington, DC today for the 2nd year. And I brought home a new shiny medal!

Had a great carpooling companion in my training buddy Dave who ran the full marathon. Our friend Janice got 3rd woman 50-54 in the half. It's a well-run race. I'll probably do it again. Cherry blossoms were at their loveliest peak bloom. And hurrah! I got to see my great faves Jeanne (who kicked my butt) and Holly (thanks so much for coming out)!!!

Those are the best parts.

Bad parts included, but are not limited to:
* 3:15 AM wakeup
* Starting the day on very sore legs from way too much weightlifting a couple days ago
* Coughing for two weeks with what I thought was allergies but what I now think is bronchitis (I suppose you're going to tell me that I'm not *supposed* to cough up blood after a race, aren't you?)
* My generalized bad attitude (see 1, 2, and 3 above)
* Slowest finish time in the last ~2 years (2:40). (Then again, my Garmin measured 13.94 miles instead of something closer to 13.1 - but it may have done screwy things in all those underpasses when it lost the satellite signal. I wasn't looking at it very much today.).

That is all.

Oh, not all, really: Here is a screen grab of the official half marathon course elevation chart, and the version from my Garmin which included 4 or 5 underpasses which don't show up on an automatically-generated chart:

The course map, starting and ending at RFK Stadium in the southeast corner:

13 comments:

21stCenturyMom said...

You got up, you showed up, you ran - way to go!

Unknown said...

Nice work gettin' in done while under the weather, and bringin' home the hardware, Nancy!

LD said...

Just out of curiosity...where was Dave from?

jeanne said...

err, coughing up BLOOD???????????? No, I don't think that's standard post-race! Good lord, you are HARDCORE!

I like your elevation chart better than the official one. It looks like we climbed a mountain thru dupont circle. Holy hell.

Congrats, and no more running til you are FULLY recovered.

Brent Buckner said...

Good work!

3:15am... ouch
Coughing up blood... double ouch

Nancy Toby said...

LD -
Did you meet Dave out there? He's from a town near by me, but he was wearing a black and reddish Mid Maryland Tri jacket today and black shorts.

ShirleyPerly said...

Congrats Nancy, esp. with #2 & #3 going on. Hope you get better soon. Seems like a lot of folks are sick with bronchitis, strep or something nasty ...

IronWaddler said...

Amazing that you went and hung in there. Good job.

LBTEPA said...

Coughing up blood? Don't go and die on us!
What 21CM said - yay you!

Lesser is More said...

Great job despite everything! I ran the marathon yesterday (my first) and felt the same way about the elevation charts from the website. I studied them and thought, nothing too bad after the climb from Dupont Circle. Boy was I wrong! So many steady inclines and short steep ones that weren't depicted in their chart. I'd be interested to see the real elevation charts of the 2nd 13.1 because it killed me a lot more than I thought it would.

Jade Lady said...

Congratulations on getting to the finish line!

Get some rest now - you deserve it! I hope you feel better soon!

Rainmaker said...

Awesome job! And blood coughage after the race? That's hardcore - clearly exemplifying HTFU attitude.

peter said...

That's a cool elevation chart of the Nat'l HM from your Garmin, I can see the Dupont Circle underpass quite clearly on it. I have run two races with you before Saturday, Nancy, on 1/7 and 1/8/06. (I passed on the 5K back then.) Nice job on Saturday.