It’s been a month since my last race. I’ve been really enjoying the downtime at home on weekends. However, I’ve spent some time really thinking about my running goals before hitting the road. Before I knew it, we were headed to Nashville.
As always, I was following the weather pretty closely leading up to the race. Turns out that the heat would be absolutely no joke. The weather was pegged somewhere in the 90s during the weekend. Race day was sandwiched with thunderstorms. I went back and forth with race outfits and at 4am, before leaving the apartment, I made one last switch to something much thinner, just in case. It turned out to be a great decision. I also packed two pairs of running shoes (one waterproof), and a windbreaker, just in case I got rained on.
The warmest race I’d ever ran was my “warm up” marathon for Dopey in December. I put it in quotes because it was ironically warm — Dallas, in the winter, was unseasonably humid and warm. The following day it was below freezing, because Erik ran his marathon that day and I kept swapping out his frozen water bottles. I remember it vividly. My times suffered horribly because of the heat.The Texas Double was fairly intense, but this was WAY WORSE. I never thought I would pass out in Dallas, but I certainly felt that way in Nashville. The weather was bad enough for a heat advisory at the expo. I snapped this lovely gem the day before:
I ended up thinking a lot about that sign as I slowwwwly walked the hilly, humid, steamy course. I didn’t commit any of it to memory of course. I read something about salt pills, but I’ve never taken them and I try not to try anything new on race day…although I’m sure this was an exception. (Perhaps I should’ve aimed for some salty french fries or something instead?)
The morning of the race was absolutely miserable. We climbed into the car and it was probably already in the high 70s and humid. Getting to the start was also pretty challenging. It was probably the most congested race start I’ve ever been to, on par with the West Hollywood Halloween block party I’d say. It was about five or six blocks of human sardines pushing against one another, in their full hot sweaty glory, on top of the humidity. After I parted ways with my party, I quickly ducked into a Holiday Inn to use the restroom and to cool off until my race corral was near the start.
I was drenched in sweat even before the race began. By the time the race started, I felt like I was in a sauna. I wondered if this was how Ironman Louisville would’ve felt like, because I’m pretty sure it would’ve felt like this. The start line was still fairly enthusiastic and energetic. I felt cranky but alas I was here.
The course itself was pretty hilly and had winding roads. The first aid station ran out of water. Thankfully I was carrying my Camelbak so water wasn’t much of an issue for me. I stayed away from courtesy water sprays, mostly because I didn’t have any extra sunscreen to reapply and I was more scared of getting burnt to a crisp. I drank lots and lots AND LOTS of gatorade, and for the first time in a long time I dropped a few nuun tabs into my Camelbak. I’ve literally never been so hot, like, ever. I felt like dropping out after the first four miles and I quit consistent intervals after about three minutes, and quit them altogether after 2 miles. My splits were positive. I really just wanted it all over, and I was really sore because it’s been awhile since I’d walked this distance. I’ve been running the distance, so my body was not prepared for the time on my feet and certainly not the heat…
Here’s how miserable I looked (and felt!).
I was in the shade, so apparently I wasn’t too cranky yet. You should get a load of me at the finish line though:
I’m pretty much burning up. I didn’t even bother to take a finish line selfie. I’m mostly just too angry and thirsty and hot to stop. I just want to grab all the goodies and find somewhere to sit. Unfortunately it would be about another 20 minutes or so until I got to sit, because I’d still have to walk to the other end of the stadium to the car.
It’s a few days later and I’m pretty sure I’m still dehydrated and tired from the race! I’ve been drinking more than usual and trying to rest but I’m still feeling pretty beat. After the race we mustered as much energy as we could to visit the Music Hall of Fame Museum. It was a lot of fun.
We got home in time to greet our monthly subscribe and save package, that includes all of our training goodies which includes a healthy shipment of training gels and nuun. I stash my Kona Cola nuun away for emergencies.
We’ve been slowly but surely adding to our medals. Our first heavy medal came in today as well! I’m really looking forward to our other ones. A lot of them will come in the mail during the summer.
The next few weeks should be interesting. Classes are wrapping up, and our next race will be overseas. See you in Liverpool!
Amara in Training 