Bad race?

These last few weeks have been beyond crazy! I've had so many things on my plate that I was barely keeping my head above water. Some of the things were completely out of my control - Jon's hospital (still no stone, but thankfully no pain either), a race date changed, etc. But it means that the house was a disaster, my brain was fried, and several things were not completed like I'd hoped. One of those things was my 2nd 1/2 marathon. I'd agreed to run the race when I didn't have very much on my plate. But it was rescheduled to a crazy weekend and I just couldn't think about it. Which means that I was heading home from a job on Saturday night with nothing ready for my early morning trip to Nashville the very next morning.

The race time was also moved an hour later and so the temps were a bit warmer than anticipated. I wasn't as trained as the previous 1/2 and hoped that it would work in my favor. It was also an almost perfect coarse and extremely flat.

Race day found me with my family standing in the parking lot killing time before race start. I noticed my mom talking to a woman, but didn't think anything about it until she brought the lady over and introduced her. Her name was Queen and she was from Zimbabwe. Really cool lady who had only started running the first of September and decided to run a 1/2 marathon the next month. My dad and I were not only astounded, but also a little concerned. That's a huge jump to make. We talked and gave her a few pointers and I offered to run w/ her. 

I began the race and was soon left in the dust by both Queen and my dad. 

The weather was warmer than I'd hoped for, but not bad. Because of my dehydration last time I made sure to drink a few sips at each water station. The first 6 miles went great until I started to notice that I was feeling winded at a pace I thought was normal. After checking with other runners I came to the conclusion that my watch pace might be off by as much as 1 minutes. Instead of running a 10 minute pace, I was running a 9 minute pace. I hit mile 8 and about crashed. My times started getting worse and worse. I had hit a wall and was just plodding along. The only times I stopped to walk were at the water stations and yet my walking was faster than my running.

At about mile 12 I saw this wonderful site ahead. It was my sweet Dad. He always comes back to run in with me. I honestly don't know if I could have kept running if he hadn't been there encouraging me those last few minutes into the finish.

 And as I was getting closer I saw another sweet smile. Queen had an amazing finish and came back to run me in too. Then as I got to the last 10th of a mile I saw my little Dominic running along the sidewalk. So my last few minutes were spent with some amazing people who helped me make it to the finish line. I'm so thankful!

My very own cheering team!

I finished with a time of 2:26:58.

After the finish I was toast. I felt so nauseous and light headed that I couldn't even stand up. It was crazy. I've never felt that way after a race. A little bit of nausea, but never this bad. I almost passed out several times. I finally made it back to the car where Jon had rigged up our back packing shower with a quilt at the end of the truck. So I was able to shower off and change clothes. I started feeling better then. I slept on the way home and by the time we got into town I was able to eat our typical Sunday lunch of Taco Bell. That evening I helped out with my son's school auction.

It is now Wednesday and I feel great. My legs are a little sore, but there isn't any of the dead tired, can't move stuff of last time. Last time I didn't run for over a week after the race. When I started back I ran 3 miles twice that week and started working my way back up from there.

I will be running 8 miles on Friday. I feel great and have no intention of starting over again.

So my question now is - Was that really such a bad race? I had a pr of almost 3 minutes from my previous 1/2. My recovery time was so much shorter this time.