CDA (half...) Marathon Recap

Now... To be clear, my personal experience should not make or break your view of the CDA Marathon... This just was not my day..

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Packet Pickup
Packet pickup is the day before. No line at all, you find your name on the list outside the "expo", walk in, give them your bib number, confirm your name and swipe your bib. Boom. Done. 

Expo
Big disappointment. Literally around ten booths, nothing spectacular... Didn't even look around or buy a single thing, which is huge considering how much gear there is and how I think I need to check all if it out. Although, we did have a good time in CDA with the girlies at a quaint little bar and grill called "Crickets", go food, Bill and I shared a heaping nacho and the beef was shredded rather than ground which make me happy. And that night we met up withy girl, Mandy, and her family, husband and adorable 9 month old little girl. We went to Seasons, and again the food was great, I had some seriously delicious mahi tacos. 

Prep
No wine this week. Tons of water. No calorie counting. Nothing crazy to eat. Plenty of sleep. Taper all week (which makes me a super grouch, so I do owe Bill an apology). Plenty of sleep the night before. Packed overnight oats, Nuun tablets and carried my water bottle more than my purse. :) 

Gear
-Mizuno Wave Prophecy 3's, as usual, these shoes are awesome, even though my feet suck... More on that in a sec.

-Mizuno also sent me cool running tank (snugger than my preference to run in, but had a super handy little pocket on the back for gels, chews & my Chapstick, was modest on the neckline which made me happy and has built in boob support 😊) and a cool white visor which worked great instead of my sunglasses. 

-OGIO 9.0 bag is about the coolest bag out there, I use it to carry all my running stuff, in tons of perfect pockets and keep my shoes away from my white gear (this bag also has a terrific drying area that zips out and a helmet area, would be awesome as a triathlon bag)

-OGIO backpack to carry my stuff for after the race, compression socks, dry clean clothes, Tylenol... 

- The Brooks running jacket Bill bought me at the Bloomsday Expo  

- Drymax Hyper Thin Mini Socks
- Random running capris
- Under Armour sports bra (learned my lesson at Bloomsday that this does indeed matter)
-Bill's Bose Earbuds, my iPhone and case that also holds my ID and a debit card

- My Garmin

Volunteers/Fluids/Spectators/Entertainment/Post Race
Good amount of volunteers and fuel/water stations. They had Hammer gels which I prefer to my own, so I was happy about that. Spectators were good in town, scarce the further you ran out. Zero entertainment which was fine considering I had my music. Post race was set up well but nothing spectacular. 

The Actual Race

Well I knew going into this race that my foot had a stress fracture. I taped it up, took enough Tylenol and Ibuprofen to put down a horse and decided that I would do my best and hope to not cause more harm to my foot. The entire race course was on roads, which suprised me, as I assumed it would be on the trail. Miles 1-5 went well, running around 8:30-9:00 miles, that's when we hit the hills... I am not a great hill runner to start with but my lungs felt good, I slowed my speed and just tried to stay consistent, dropped down to about 9:30 miles, and I was okay with that. The first steep down hill is when things started falling apart, because of where the fracture is, the downhill strike of my foot was right were it hurt, and with every step it hurt worse. I decided to try to turn my foot out towards the right to take the impact of the strike on the outside of my foot which did help and fell back to 10 minute miles, and I thought to myself 'take your time, just finish'. At the turn around (7.5 miles-ish) I was hurting, a lot, and heading right back into the hills... I went through a water station around 10 miles and could hardly walk and knew this was not going to end well. By then, the pain in my foot was a burning sensation, and radiating out into the whole pad of my foot and running at an angle was wrecking havoc on my ankle. At mile 11, my pace was shit, at around 11 min/miles. At this point I text Bill, 'I'm dying'. I see a race volunteer and ask if I drop to the half, if I am DQ'd. He said no, that I would just need to get ahold of the race folks. Then I text Bill to come, that my 26.2 just turned into a 13.1. Finished the half, very slowly, but was happy I finished at all. It was certainly touch and go. Watched Mandy cross the finish line, which was cool. Afterward, iced it immediately, put on some stuff June sent, pulled on my compression socks and took more ibuprofen. My ankle was completely black and blue already. We went to dinner with my sister, Lily and stepdad, all the kiddos, and Mandy and her family. Had some delicious sushi and wine. Enjoyed what had done, rather than focusing on what I hadn't. Thinking over my foot healing up plan... The thought of rest isn't my favorite plan. 

Overall
Beautiful scenery. Good overall race. Difficult with the hills.