The Columbus [Half] Marathon: The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

I was so crazy excited about this race because it is SO AWESOME! I was up and at 'em early this morning. Coffee, oatmeal, several appearances in the bathroom...about as normal as race morning could be. We got into the car and I listened to three pre-race necessities (in this order): Sledgehammer, Ice Cream Paint Job, and Baton Rouge. We didn't hit up any traffic on our way there.

Life.was.good.

Until Jimmy dropped me off and I left my phone with him....

That's when the bad begins. Jackie and I have trained for months together. We were looking forward to doing this amazing race together. Neither of us were going to have our phones so we made plans to meet up in our corral. It wasn't crowded at all when I arrived but I wasn't sure if Jackie was there yet. I'm looking everywhere near our corral and I don't see her. I'm starting to get worried because this is her first big race (we ran a half two weeks ago but there were only 3,000ish runners compared to 18,000 in this race). Twenty minutes later, I decided to check my bag and continue my search. Apparently, we were in the same area of the corral. I have NO idea how we missed each other!

Although I was a little stressed about not finding her, I knew I had to make the best of it. I REALLY did not want to run without her. She seriously makes me a better runner.

And we're off...

The race itself was great. I knew I would enjoy myself because I ran the full two years ago. The crowd is the best part. Everyone is so supportive. I love all of the high fives from the kids (and adults) and I even got some hugs from my amazing friends that came out to support me! My ultimate goal was to break 2 hours. Based on how I felt this week, I knew I wasn't going to beat my time from 2 weeks ago (1:50:13). I probably ran harder than I should have and I'm paying for it right now!

My right leg has given me fits all season so you would think that would be my issue...NOPE! I think I was relying more on my left leg because of the injuries on my right. My left knee started bothering me around mile 5 but I still felt ok. I kept pushing and pushing...

When I reached mile 9, the knee was starting to feel unbearable and I could tell I was slowing down a bit. At mile 10, I wanted to give up. I kept repeating "I wish Jackie was here." I knew she wouldn't let me quit. Although I did not give up, those last 3 miles were the hardest I've felt since running the full marathon. About that time, I started thinking about the people I was running for: my hubby, my son, Jeff, and Jim. I kept repeating their names (which made me get all emotional and almost start crying! If you've ever started crying while running, you know you can't breathe right!).

As I approached the last mile, I knew I would see Mr. and Baby Boo. When I did, it gave me that extra something I needed to do the last quarter mile. I was so happy to cross that finish line!

1:55:33

Here comes the ugly...

After the emotional roller coaster I call the last 3 miles, all I wanted was to hug my husband, my son, and Jackie. The problem: where are they?! The way the finish was set up, it seemed like we had to walk FOREVER to get to the area where you can wait for your family. The following is a lesson about the importance of communication and the flaws associated with assumption:

Each year, they have an area set up with posts that have letters on them. The letters are to represent your last name so that you have a place to meet up with your family without looking around for them for an hour. Two years ago, this is how I met up with my family afterwards and it wasn't an issue. So, I ASSUMED this was the plan this year. What I didn't realize is that Jimmy did not make that ASSUMPTION and we hadn't COMMUNICATED a meeting plan to each other.

The ugly part? I stood, lonely and cold, under the "D-F" sign for over an hour! I didn't want to move because I knew for sure he'd come there for me. My body was still in shock (and freezing) so I was hurting pretty badly. I was afraid to sit and stretch because I wanted Jimmy to be able to see me. Two different gentlemen let me use their phones to call but I had to leave a voicemail. Finally, more than an hour later, I look over and see my relief. Jackie was there!! I burst into tears. All of the emotion hit me all at once: relief, pain, frustration...you name it, I felt it. I had to sit with Jackie for a few moments to let it out so I wouldn't get unnecessarily mad at Jimmy. It wasn't his fault or mine. Just a piece of the plan we had not discussed.

I was very quiet as we walked to the car...and in the car...AND when we arrived home. Mostly, I was cold, in pain, and still processing my emotions. Why do I subject this stuff to myself on purpose?!

Anyway, I really love this race and enjoyed it despite the bad and the ugly. I just want to thank those who came out to support me and those who supported me from afar! You guys really helped me when I wanted to give up!!!

Babies Are Weird

I have been blessed with one of the coolest dudes in the world. He has made my transition into motherhood a little easier than I had imagined it (by NO means is it easy, but, when I hear other peoples' stories, I know I have it a little easier than some).

I am thankful he hasn't had any major illnesses thus far, no crazy hospital visits; I haven't been left by myself for a few days while my husband is out of town for work (JACKIE ;)). He has allowed me to run with him in a stroller...the list goes on.

With that being said, there have been some challenges and BABIES ARE WEIRD! These phases they go through can drive a routine person (ME) crazy! First, it was the sleep issues. After the first few weeks of life, he actually slept 5-6 hours straight until 3 or so months old. We went through a LONG phase of waking up every couple of hours. This was so rough! I discovered the Ferber Method (as hard as it was to do) and life is good. My boy has now cut out his evening nap and goes to bed between 8 and 830 pm which allows Mr.Boo and me to have some down time. He will sleep between 9-11 hours and has done that consistently for a few weeks now (except for last night when he randomly woke at 1230 a.m. and screamed his head off for at least half an hour).

My inspiration for this post? His dang eating!

He FINALLY has been eating pureed food consistently for about a month (we started trying at 5 1/2 months...it took 3 1/2 months to get him to eat! AHH!). And, praise Jesus, he has started picking up food and attempting to put it in his mouth. Sometimes it gets there, sometimes it doesn't...BUT he's trying which is a major accomplishment for us. This eating thing has sucked out all of the patience I possess.

Next task/frustration is TRANSITIONING AWAY FROM BOTTLE USE.  James' doctor would ideally like him to be off the bottle by a year old. I decided, since he's a little slow to making things happen, I'll start training now. James already drinks water from sippy cups so I thought I'd just start putting his milk in a cup. His current cups spill a little so I wanted to get a really good non spill cup (I bought Tommee Tippee cups which are amazing). He refuses to put the dang cup in his mouth! The cup is very similar to his current cups so I'm dumbfounded as to why he won't even try to drink from it. If he only knew that milk was in it, he would LOVE it!

So, this is me welcoming any advice or experiences you want to share with regards to transitioning from the bottle. I'm sure it's one of those things, like everything else, that I just have to keep trying and one day he'll just get it. BABIES ARE WEIRD!



Surprise! A James Update...

The last 3 weeks or so have been full of surprises. Mr. Boo and I think we are watching James, we look up and...SURPRISE! He's done something new. I don't think I've typed a James update since he turned 9 months. I guess I'll give you his 9 month measurements:

Height- 28 in. (34%)

Weight-17 lbs. 3 oz. (11%)

Head- 46.5 cm (89%)

Basically, he's average height, skinny, and has a big ole head!

James' firsts since turning 9 months:

• Crawling- he mostly commando crawls but started what we think of as traditional crawling a week or so ago.
  

  
• Pulling himself up- he started by pulling himself up to his knees and eventually learned to go to his feet; his technique has improved from the "wide base of support/butt sticking out" pose to standing straight up; we had to put his crib mattress down a few levels because he's now standing up and trying to look over.
  

  
• Climbing steps- we live in a split level home and he has attempted to go up from the main level to the upper level; he made it up one step but hasn't been able to do more than that.
• Consistently sleeping 9-11 hours- he started skipping his evening nap most days and going to bed a little earlier than usual.
  

  

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James gave us the ultimate surprise the other day. He has been constipated a lot since eating more solids (side note: prunes seem to help...the doc also suggested mixing apple juice with water). His poop hasn't been as soft as it should be so I can imagine J isn't feeling that great regarding his bowels. Anyway, I was changing his diaper and there was a tiny rabbit turd is his diaper. I was doing my thang to clean him up when he started grunting REALLY  hard. As I started putting coconut oil on his booty, a turd started coming out!!! AHHH! It kept coming and coming and coming. I looked like one of my dogs' turds! My jaw seriously dropped. I couldn't believe the size of that thing.

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In our future:

J goes to the doctor this Friday for his second flu shot and, ten days from now, J will go on his first flight! I am a little nervous about flying alone with him. Not so much the flight part as much as the security part. I'm sure the TSA employees will be nice but I'm afraid the general public will be jerks because people tend to be in a hurry and there's no way I can be in a hurry when I'm by myself with James!

Run Like A Girl Half Marathon (includes race review)

When I started running post pregnancy, I had no idea what to expect. Am I going to be a suckier (not a word) runner than before? Am I going to be able to train for races with a baby in the picture?

Mandatory James picture. He is saying "Good job, mom...but let's get the heck home! It's cold!"

It turns out that I'm a BETTER RUNNER and, yes, I CAN train for big races with my baby (in fact, I felt extremely weird running without him today)!!! 

The Run Like A Girl (RLAG) half was a true test of my abilities. When you stroller train, you have NO IDEA where to start guesstimating a potential pace. I went into this race wanting to break two hours. My personal record (PR) is 1:57 and some change (Memphis half marathon in 2006...when I was "young"). In fact, even if I was able to go faster, I told myself I was going to stay around that pace so that I could kill the Columbus half in two weeks. What have I learned? You can't tell a runner to take it easy during a race! 

Pre-race selfie! We were SO COLD!!!

I had my mapper on during the race to have an idea of our pace (poet and didn't know it) but ended up only checking it 2 or 3 times. I was so focused during the final stretch that I didn't stop the mapper. I've been stalking the website ALL DAY waiting for the results! Without further ado, my official time, per whoever does RLAG, is:

1:50:13

Holy Crap! I smashed my PR!!  We placed 46th and 47th out of 664 runners and, I think, 6th in the 30-34 age group! I would like to think we broke 1:50 because Jackie stopped her watch a little after we finished and it said 1:50...but whatev! LOL. A special shout out to my girl/running partner, Jackie, for finishing her first half!!! I am SO PROUD of this girl!

Not only did we get a free bottle of wine...they gave us celebratory shots of wine! 

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In case you want to run this half in the future, here's my race review (if you don't care about racing, you should just skip this part because it may be boring):

I'm not one to care too much about the race swag bag but you do get a t-shirt, protein bar, head band and a small cold pack among other things. Also, when I picked up my packet from Front Runner, I  was given a free headband (not the one in the swag bag) that had "13.1" on it because I bought something while I was there. 

The weather was about as sucky as it can get (unless snow was present). It was SO COLD (I think it was around 40 degrees). According to my weather app that morning, it wasn't supposed to precipitate. I might delete that dang app because it was raining and HAILING almost the entire time! AND it was windy!! I'm thankful I wore long tights. I just wish I had gloves because my hands were freezing. 

As far as the course is concerned, it had a couple of back-and-forth loops of which I'm not a huge fan. We started at Columbus Commons and connected to a trail approx 1-2 miles into the run. I remember wishing we hadn't connected to the trail so early because I felt like we needed more time for the runners to thin out. It was really hard to pass the groups of runners on the trail. 

We ran 4-5 miles out before making the first turn and running back the same path. It was even harder passing people on the trail after the turning point because we had to dodge runners coming towards us. Once we were back on the city streets, we ran a mile or so and connected to another trail. We did another loop (I feel like this one wasn't as long). It turned around at about 10 miles and then we headed back towards Columbus Commons. The last 2 miles were on city streets. (side note: there are hills but, because you turn and repeat, for every one you go up, you get to go down).

I liked that they had mile markers at every mile and police at every major intersection. They seemed to have plenty of drink stations (although I didn't take advantage of them at first because it was so cold and I couldn't feel my hands) and port-a-potties. The down side was minimal spectators except at the start/finish (part of that due to being on trails)...BUT, when there were spectators, they were very encouraging! 

The finish felt organized. They immediately gave medals and directed us to food/water/wine. Did I mention that you get a free bottle of wine?!

I haven't decided if this is a race I'll do again since it's so close to the Nationwide Children's Columbus Marathon (I LOVE THAT RACE!!!). I feel like I enjoyed it more because it was my first big race post baby and because I PR'd with Jackie. Hope this helps you guys in deciding if you want to run the race in the future!