My Race Stats
So here they are…my results…started out decently and then I died…and now the wild and wacky tale of how it all came to be–and yes…I can TOTALLY sense your excitement! lol!
Let’s move back a bit in time to Thursday. I did one last, slow 2 mile run in the crazy, 90°F/30°C-ish temperatures (complete with humidity), to keep my legs loose. Instead of wasting time driving to the gym for such a short run, I figured I would run outside, enjoy the beautiful weather and get a good, quick sweat on. What I didn’t except was getting smoked by a car by an elderly woman.
What happened was odd. She was on a side street, I was running on the side walk of a main thoroughfare. We made eye contact, she started to slow down as she approached the stop sign. I slowed down as always, just in case, and turns out that was a wide decision. As she was doing her final press of her brake, well, I guess she got confused and pressed the gas instead and tapped me.
I wasn’t seriously hurt–just a small bruise on my left shin. I figured that this incident meant that I was destined for a PR–sorta like a lucky charm of sorts. 
Then came Friday. Picked up my cousin and we were off to Fargo. We started the journey early, shortly before 8am. Made it across the border by about 9:30 or so, including the 5-8 minute wait time. Then we did a stop at Target for snacks and a pee break in Grand Forks, followed by another hour in the car to Fargo.
Upon arriving in Fargo, we hit up the race expo and picked up our race kits. The shirts are pretty nice this year and it was nice being at the expo early–far less chaotic then past years when we have hit the expo in the middle of the afternoon.
My cousin continued to want to shop–and she wanted me with her. In retrospect, I’m not sure this was best for my legs in terms of pre-race prep. I was in the mood to rest…and I think I will make a point of resting more next year and for any future races.
Fast forward to race day–Saturday morning. Got up, got ready, got stressed. See, it was storming and windy as hell, complete with thunder and lightning.
Gorgeous day to run, no?
Though that didn’t seem as bad as the most stressful part–the traffic. My cousin and I took the exit as per the sign on the highway–and we got stuck in a bottle neck for an hour. The worst part is that people kept screaming down the “open lane” and then other people at the front of the line would be forced to let them in. It was brutal. I would’ve loved to have throttled the race organizers for that one as someone should’ve been directing traffic to prevent this sort of thing from happening. In the end, my cousin and I actually had to run about half a mile from our parking spot in order to make it for the start–they were just finishing the horrible renditions of the Canadian and American anthems as we made it to the massive starting line.
Now, Fargo doesn’t have a wave or corral start–something that, as this race continues to get more popular, is a bigger and more irritating problem. When there are corrals, you are placed based on what your past times have been. The good part of this is that you don’t have random walkers in the midst of people who are running for time. Without the corral start, I encounter walkers smack dab in the middle of the road (rather than off to the side so they aren’t in the way), people running in groups 5-6 abreast in narrow parts of the course, and generally poor running etiquette, which makes for a stressful start to a race, in my humble opinion. Oh and for the record, I totally embrace walkers and groups participating in these events, I just don’t like when they, for lack of a better phrase, get in the way.
I managed to run the first 7 miles in 1:00:47. Those first seven miles were rough–I was having trouble finding a pace that was fast and comfortable. I blame the stressful start. I lost a LOT of time over the next miles as my hips started to ache and my calves started to seize, for reasons unbeknownst to me. The only thing that really kept me going were a few mantras in my head. The first was “you are running your first properly trained and un-injured race in 2 years–don’t STOP now.” The second was “you will regret stopping because you know you are capable of doing this…and its far better to continue than have that regret of the time you walked, which might lose you your planned PR.” The third was “P!R! *clap clap* P!R! *clap clap*.” The fourth was “do it for your friend T and your new niece R–you promised them the last mile so you can’t quit yet.” The fifth was “make this fabulous race outfit worth the nearly $200 you paid for it.”
The newest finisher medal to my collection
So I finished. I fought tears. It’s funny because I’m not usually a super emotional person when it comes to getting bleary eyed…but when I finish races, esp. when I have met my goals, I sorta lose it. It was hard doing that last sprint down the chute and fighting off sobs.
Post race, I grabbed water and some snacks and ran into my running buddy O and then eventually found my cousin. She got a PR too, which is amazing, but, sadly, she missed her sub 2 hour finish goal by a measly 15 seconds. How brutal! I am hoping next year will finally be her year. 
Lots of vanity plates in Fargo…but this one made me laugh.
With my “uff-da” spent (it’s a scandinavian thing that they say in fargo–it’s on the medal, the race shirts and even the above license plate), my cousin and I got cleaned up, packed up and checked out to start our road trip to the Twin Cities. Let the budget breaking begin….and yes, deets to come…just not til I get home from Banff! I have to take some pics of my fun purchases!
Much Luv,
Leesah
