the 25k story - 2011 riverbank run

Well, we did it! It was a tough and disappointing race, but we finished. Here's the story:

On Saturday morning, we parked at some friends' house to meet them and walk to the starting line. There was a whole group of us, and it was raining pretty steadily on our way down there, and I'm thinking, It's going to be a loooong morning! But by the time we started lining up, the rain let up to just a light mist. Eric started up with the 8.30 pacers, while I was back around the 10-minute-milers, and getting started I felt great! I stuck with a pretty steady pace and then at mile 4 I settled into a perfect stride. I pass mile 6, and I start thinking, Wow! I can't believe I'm actually doing this! I had been so terrified, and it's really not that bad!

Then I pass the water tables, then the aid station, and all of a sudden I hear someone yelling my name, trying to wave me down... I'm jamming to my ipod, not paying any attention and just running away, but then I look over at the aid station, and there's Eric sitting in a chair next to the medics. I immediately flip into panic mode, thinking the worst is happening. He tells me that he started feeling a pain shooting through his shoulder and up his neck almost to mile 6 and then he suddenly couldn't breathe. A medic on a bike saw him stumbling around near the edge of the road and was able to lead him to the aid station. Then they called an ambulance over. At that point I'm thinking, Okay, that's it. This is over. We made it 6 miles, and that's okay. We can't control this. Our race is over.

The paramedics checked his heart rate, pulse, and blood sugar, and everything was normal. After having sat in the back of the ambulance for a half hour, Eric was actually feeling a lot better. We knew my parents were up a mile or so at Johnson Park, so I figured we'd ride in the ambulance and then my parents could take us back to the car. The paramedics strongly recommended that we not go any further. But Eric told them that he wanted to at least walk to meet my parents. So we started walking. Then he was feeling good, so we took off at a slow jog... by the time we got to my parents around mile 7, he said that he wanted to finish the race. I told him okay, but he was going to have to run the rest of the race at my slow 10-minute-mile pace.

At mile 8, he had had enough of my slow running... so he took off at a quicker run. I could still see him up ahead of me for a while, so I wasn't terribly worried. And we had gotten so far back in the group of runners, that we were passing people like crazy. That was the hardest part... not running in the group anymore once we fell so far back. I just had no idea how fast I was running. I kept passing people, but it was hard to keep my normal pace because I didn't know how fast anyone else was running. But at that point I had decided that just finishing was enough for me! It was tough to start running again, too, when I had been convinced that we were done just 30 minutes earlier.

Eric was struggling with cramping, and I caught back up with him about 12.5 miles in. From there we ran/walked the last 3 miles together. Before the whole fiasco, Eric was on pace to run a 2.15, and I was shooting for about 2.35, but we finished at 3.06. Nothing to shake our heads at, because not many people we know can run 15.5 miles!!, but Eric was really bummed. He is in amazing shape, and he's run 14 and 15 mile training runs several times before this. So he knew he was going to do well. After training for 5 months, it's really disappointing to have it blow up like that. But I keep thinking, there's always next year. I'm so proud of Eric for pushing through and finishing the race. And maybe our third time running the 25k will be the charm :)

Here's a couple of pics from the race:

Me passing my parents the first time, about mile 7.
Notice the slow old ladies we're running with ;)

Me passing my parents again, about to mile 13.
And I'm feeling good!