Scotiabank Wet T-Shirt Contest - Uh ...Half-Marathon

Yesterday was the Scotiabank Half-Marathon that was the last square on my training schedule (until the new Official Marathon Training begins on July 20th and it is replaced by a new chart). It was a day that I've been preparing for in some capacity for a few weeks, so of course what happened is that the day before I went out to Surrey to have a garage sale at my dad's, then had to careen into town to pick up my race package by 5 PM. I got a speeding ticket, but I also managed to get my timing chip activated about a minute before they turned the machine off. Then I went to SuperValu to buy Gatorade and see what kind of energy stuff they had because the running stores were also closed at this point. Luckily they had quite a selection and I picked up some energy cubes a gel (both made by cliff bars) and some cliff bars. Then I went next door to pick up the pasta we had ordered because we were too tired to cook it. You know things are not going well when you're too tired to cook pasta, but still I thought I was doing pretty well. So far so good.

Sunday at 5 AM, I saw the pouring rain and decided to rethink my entire outfit - I brought a hat and my running jacket and left the iPod at home. Then some bad things happened which I will not get into, but which left a pack of ugly, negative thoughts in my head and this was when I got an inkling of how miserable a day it was. Pouring rain, no music, a shin splint and a head full of negativity. Possibly the worst ever combination for a long run. 

But I finished it. It took me about 20 minutes longer than I wanted it to, which is to say that it took me 2 hours and 46 minutes. And in contrast to last year where I was so proud of myself for persevering, this year I almost cried a few times. And I'm not sure if I actually would have followed through on the plan, but I did also think about quitting. I thought about it a lot. 

In the end it wasn't the extra minutes on my time that bothered me, but my incredible lack of personal strength. Even though I didn't clearly form the thought, I had given up at about Kilometre 15,  and really I'm not sure what got me through the last 6 K - maybe the thought that I wouldn't be able to get a ride home before that, I don't know - but when I got to the finish line I was so broken. I wasn't proud, I was disgusted with myself. And I knew, really and truly that if I had to do another 21.2 K after that, that I wouldn't have made it.

I'm a positivist though, so I have to take what I can out of any experience and yesterday's lesson was to not let the bad thoughts into your head, bring music if you can, do more swimming so the inner thighs aren't so sore, do more stretching en-route so the shin splints aren't so sore, don't throw your hat away just because the sun comes out for 5 minutes and learn to laugh at what you can. So when it was all over and Leanne met me at the finish line with my Gatorade "Rain" we laughed at what an appropriate drink that was for the day and how funny it was that this year's race shirt was see-through white on the wettest day of the year. And now I'm ready to get back at it again after just a little rest.