Before I get to my Boilermaker recap… a few moments from last week…
The start of summer kickball and a double header in the rain. Sweet summertime, I do love me some good mudball – and just check out the clouds rolling in. This was during our break between the 6 and 8 pm games.
Next, this song. Stuck in my head for 4 days. I guess it wasn’t terrible since it’s a happy upbeat song – other than the fact that it’s now dead to me and I never want to hear it again. (Time for every radio station to play it over and over…. go!)
Roxie officially has a life-vest! The pup is scared of the water, I think mostly because her legs have to work so hard to keep her body afloat. I’m excited to see if this helps out with the whole fear factor. With my luck it will work a little too well… but I’m excited to take her kayaking and canoeing soon!
And now… as promised… the Boilermaker Recap!
Oh Boilermaker, every year I have such great intentions to work hard and really get after my goal time of 1:15 (8 minute miles) and every year, that just slips away. This year I feel like I could have gotten after it, since I had put in a bunch of training for the 70.3, however my body had other plans when I ended up getting pretty sick (ok, very sick) Saturday afternoon.
All was well as A and I headed out to the packet pickup. We grabbed breakfast at Panera, drove out to Utica to get the packets. As part of my Ragnar Ambassadorship, I stopped in the Ragnar booth to help promote for a bit and help try to convince people that running 200 miles with a team is no big deal (really, it’s not that hard – you can do it, and have a blast at the same time!!). While working the booth, I started to feel a little under the weather and attributed it to the fact that I had drank 2 coffees and not much water. After leaving the expo, A and I stopped for water and I had hoped that all would be fine. Unfortunately, not the case. I’ll save you the details but let’s just say my body didn’t agree with my head that we should be hydrating and keeping food inside to prepare for the 15K the next day. This continued all afternoon and evening despite my best attempts to tell myself that I was fine and I wasn’t really sick. 
When I got up at 5 a.m. Sunday, the first thing I tried to do was eat some food and see if it was going to stay inside my body. I really wanted to run because I had a lot of friends who were running the race, and truth be told, I wasn’t ready to give up on the feeling of finishing the race and the celebration with friends after. (As I still am not 100% back on track 3 days later, I can tell you that the smarter choice would have probably been to sit on the sidelines and cheer everyone on… but that’s really not my style).
As the race start neared, I knew I was still not really back to 100%, but I decided to start and see if I could get through the race anyway. A knew I wasn’t feeling well, and ended up choosing to run with me, which was amazing… he definitely helped me get through the first 6 miles – because I think I would have called it quits at mile 2 if he hadn’t been there. I was in really rough shape and my body was having a hard time with cooling for the first few miles. This was also actually the first time that I had run a race, or part of a race, with someone. It was amazing how much that helped me to mentally power through some of the tougher points early on.
At mile 6, A broke off and did his own thing for the last 5K of the race – because I had accidentally kicked his foot when I tried to cross over behind him – which I still feel terrible about… (again, I’m sorry A.) After he went ahead, I started to struggle hard. I think the only part of the race where I actually felt normal was during Mile 5. I had told A at about the 5.5 mile mark that I was feeling better, but that went downhill and fast as we hit mile 6. Luckily I could tell myself that I only had 5K left to go and that it was no big deal – unfortunately the last 5K of the Boilermaker always seems like it’s so much longer than the first two 5K segments. Oh the mind games of running…
Overall, I ended up making it across the finish and I did set a PR for myself at 1:21, but I’m ready to get back at this next year in hopes that I could run this when I haven’t been sick the entire day before the event. On the bright side, I did finish the race, I did get to hear about all my friends accomplishment’s for the day – they all did amazing things! Some of my friends this was the first time they had run this far, for others they smashed their PR’s by astonishing times (some by over 15 minutes!), and everyone seemed to completely and totally enjoy the day, the experience, and the fun of running.
Seriously, the boilermaker is a special event with over 14,000 runners in the 15K, numerous bands, tons of spectators along the entire course, popsicles handed out along the way, zoo animals on the sidelines and of course the after party at the brewery with 40,000+ people is always quite the adventure. As always, the boilermaker was a ton of fun and I’m looking forward to running again next year.
Next up – this weekend S, A, C and I are going to be running the Forest Frolic – another 15K but this time we’re hitting the trails !!! I’m so excited for this event as it will mark my first official trail race. I’m planning to just take it easy and see what the whole trail running bit is about, especially given the elevation map that this course takes on. Oh, and I’m totally getting a Trail Raptor t-shirt. I don’t typically buy all the “extra” stuff that races try to sell but I feel like this is going to be something I just cannot pass up.
Especially given the fact that the actual race only cost $0.25… let’s hear it for races that are off the beaten path!
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