Hi everyone! How is everyone doing? It certainly is a busy time of year right now! I’m super busy with end of the school year stuff, we’re getting ready to have our garage built, and I’m getting ready to teach summer school for the first time ever! I’m a little nervous about that, but mostly excited. But that’s not what this blog post is about!
For the second year in a row, I am doing the Conquer the Capital 45.5 challenge in my capital city of Madison, WI. This challenge involves running the Twilight 10K Saturday night May 28 and the Madison Half Marathon Sunday morning May 29; as well as the Madison Marathon November 13.
The weekend of May 28-29 was part 1! This is the 3rd year I have run the Twilight 10K and I absolutely love this race! It is a great course; challenging with the hills, but running up the to the finish line seeing the capital building all lit up, makes all the hills and hard work so totally worth it. It was definitely a struggle this time around. The past 2 years I have felt strong and confident the entire race. This year I think I felt more fatigued throughout the races due to hauling and stacking logs from our 6 trees being cut down last week. I tried to take it easy with my workouts and runs before the races and didn’t really think that helping out my hubby with this project would affect my races at all. I guess I was wrong. I mean I kinda knew to begin with that it was going to be a challenge to beat my PR’s at these races, but I had my mind set to at least try no matter what.
The weather was calling for rain all weekend and that made me nervous, but I tried not to let that show. For these races, we stay in a hotel since it’s just easier to stay closer to the race then it is to go home. It’s not that far of a drive but it’s so much easier and the kids and hubby can sleep a little bit longer in the morning. Plus the kiddos brought their swim suits with this time so they could go swimming in the hotel pool. They had a blast doing that Saturday night after the race.
It did end up raining before my Saturday night race. I picked up my packets, we checked into our hotel, and headed to dinner closer to the race before the rain started. We barely made it into the restaurant before it started to downpour. Luckily, it cleared up before my 8:10 start time. However, this made for a humid run that night. I felt pretty good before this race. I like night races. This is the only one that I run and probably the only time all year that I run at night. It is truly a different experience running at night. It’s not really unlike my early morning runs except you start in the light and end in the dark! LOL I felt pretty decent throughout this run and only walked through the water stations. I pushed myself to the max that night. I was so hoping for a PR on this race, but sadly I missed it by a few seconds!! Last year I finished in 1:00:02 and I finished this year in 1:00:09!! I was bummed when I realized I missed it by only a few seconds, but I know I tried my best and that is all I can ask for.
I actually like how intense my face is in these photos. Proves I was really trying to get that PR!!
When we got back to the hotel the kids wanted to go swimming so we headed to the pool. I sat in the hot tub for awhile letting the jets massage my legs and my back. It felt so good! I lasted about an hour before I was almost falling asleep at the table I was sitting at. It was about 11:30 before we got back to our room and headed to bed.
The next morning I was up before everyone to get myself race ready. I packed Luna bars for everyone to eat before we left as we were having breakfast with my parents after the race. After I readied myself, I got my cheering squad ready! Boy they certainly did not want to get up but they did and I was glad for it. Despite what I might say about being able to go to races by myself, I really love it when my whole family is there for me. Knowing they are at the finish line is really what keeps me pushing forward. Their smiling faces, yelling and screaming is the best!!
We got to the start line early and I was feeling pretty good. I’m always a little nervous but today I was mainly tired and just wanted to get it started. Once we started out I could kind of tell within the first couple miles that this was going to be a challenge. Too much work helping my hubby and staying up too late in the hot tub, really did a number on my stamina and endurance today. The temps were decent but the humidity was crazy! I also decided to try something different while out running today. I had recently purchased some packets of Hammer Nutrition’s Perpetuem for reliable, long-lasting energy, maximum fat utilization, and prevention muscle fatigue, as based on the website description. It also won best of MTBR award in 2005 and 2006. I tried the orange-vanilla flavor in my water bottle today just to see if that would help to keep me going instead of drinking gatorade along the route. Gatorade usually upsets my stomach if I drink it during a race. Drinking this throughout didn’t do that; however, it did seem to dry my mouth out more and I was craving more and more water throughout the race. I had to drink my whole cup at every water station. I’m sure this had something to do with my pace, but like I said before, I was tired going into the race. I resorted to just wanting to finish the race. I didn’t care about my time. I ended up walking up one of the steepest hills in Madison that is directly beside Edgewood college that I attended for my undergrad degree. While there I walked up that hill daily! I have run up it several times but today was not my day to run it. I felt like such a failure having to walk up it and I probably could have run up it at least for a little bit, but I guess I didn’t want to push it too much as I was close to the end of the race and I wanted to save my energy so that I could make it to the finish line. I could not wait to get to that finish line. I was growing more and more exhausted as I kept running. I had a side stitch the last few tenths of a mile coming to the line, but I pushed through and made it over the line! Boy was I glad to just be finished! I got my medal and water and made it to the tent to get my Conquer the Capital 19.3 medal. I grabbed a roasted turkey sandwich bag from Panera before finding my family. I was so exhausted, I could have fallen over as soon as I found them. There were a few times while we were standing around that I felt like I could pass out by I knelt down and collected myself to avoid that. I guzzled my bottle of water and felt a little better. As soon as I sat down in the cool car, I felt better.
The first picture is from the beginning of the race and the second is through the Arboretum where I really had to rally myself to be able to keep going. I was really starting to struggle at this point.
First picture is heading down Monroe street heading towards the finish line. I had about 3 miles left to go. Last picture is my finish line photo. I was so dead set on making it across that line and getting my medals that I didn’t care about pictures! I think it shows!
I showered once we got back to the hotel and then my parents joined us for breakfast there. Let me tell you, the Hilton Garden Inn has some pretty incredible breakfasts. They are all you can eat buffets and made to order options. They have omelettes, pancakes, waffles, bacon, sausage that you can have made for you. The buffet has cereal, donuts, yogurt, fruit, juices, toast; it’s amazing!
I don’t regret anything I did during this race. I did my very best and that is all I can ask of myself. I am happy with my results and I know now that hauling and stacking logs before a race is not a good idea! Overall, this was a another good race weekend and I am glad that everyone was able to have a good time! And there’s always next year to beat my PR’s!!!
These medals though!! OMG do I love, love, love the bling from this series!!!
Until next time everyone, thanks for reading!
Make sure to check back as I have my Bob’s Red MIll Protein powder review coming up and a special #summerstrong Instagram challenge coming up in July with #sweatpink and @fitapproach! It’s going to be a strong, epic summer!! Stay tuned!!
Make sure to check back as I have my Bob’s Red MIll Protein powder review coming up and a special #summerstrong Instagram challenge coming up in July with #sweatpink and @fitapproach! It’s going to be a strong, epic summer!! Stay tuned!!
RUN ON,
<3, Laura
P.S. Here’s a sneak peak of our garage building project. Rest assured, there will be a blog about this whole process!!
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