Backseat...
...and trunk. Yes, that's two full-sized coolers. For two people. For one day. Don't ask.
The drive went well, as did dinner. EB has a fondness for Culver's, but since I've spent the past 11 years avoiding sugar, I've never had their frozen custard. Now that I'm off the wagon, though, I figured we could kill two birds with one stone by having our night-before-the-race dinner there. I'm happy to report that Culver's vanilla with crushed Oreo's is every bit as good as you'd think it would be (I had two scoops, just to be sure. I'm racing, you know...).
Once back at the motel, we proceeded to transfer the Pile-o-Crap from the Subaru to the motel room. Most of it went in the refrigerator...
...although some of it went in EB...
That's probably some super-duper-extra-strength energy drink she's sucking on...see, it's so strong it's glowing...
After dinner we drove to where race registration was being held and picked up my friend Mel, who was sharing our motel room (and who has, for some reason, the distinction of being the only one who appears on my blog without a dorky blogname. I'm not sure how that evolved, but she hasn't complained yet...). She had ridden up to the race with some teammates (see photos of overstuffed Subaru, above.)
Once we settled in, I spent a few moments admiring my new skates, which would make the trip to the event but would never actually see pavement on race day.
Ooh, shiny!
Then we got ready for bed. Due to my need to take my thyroid meds 4 hours or so before I skate, I needed to have an alarm set for 3:15. Then we set another one for 5:45 because that's when we needed to get up, and then another for 5:45 "just in case."
Thyroid meds (in contact case), water, and three alarms. Ready for bed!
Fortunately, my 48-year-old bladder spared my roommates the 3:15 am alarm by waking me up at 3:06, and it turned out to be a good thing that we had a backup for the 5:45 alarm--the cute little pink clock provided by the hotel had its a.m.'s and p.m.'s confused, and thus the alarm will be going off later this afternoon.
We decided that since the race was at 7:30 and motel checkout was at 11, we could just leave most of our Pile-o-Crap in the motel, take only what we needed to the race, and come back to the motel to clean up between the race and the awards presentation.
Remind me not to do that again. (We did end up making it back in time for the awards, but just barely).
Once at the race, EB began the process of transforming the Pile-o-Crap into stuff we actually planned to wear/drink during the race...
She appears to be very excited by the task
Meanwhile, I tracked down the guy who had my new "Max Muscle" skinsuit and jacket.
I was delighted to find that the skinsuit fit. However, although I am clearly displaying "max" something, I don't think I can claim that it's muscle. Something else to work on this summer...
The next few minutes were taken up with last-minute dashes to the bathroom, last-minute pinning of almost-forgotten numbers to skinsuits, and last-minute warnings from the race director about various course hazards.
Then, finally, we were off.
It didn't take long for my lack of (recent) experience in races longer than 5k to show up. I tried to set off on a pace that I thought I could sustain for 13 miles, since that's how I race my long track races. However, I really have no idea what I can sustain for 13 miles, so I think I was a bit optimistic. Still, I was feeling good the first mile. EB was right on my heels, and a quick glance over my shoulder confirmed that I also had four men enjoying my (generously-sized) draft. Our friend "I've Only Skated About 3 Times This Year and Yet I Will Kick Your Butts," had told us at the last minute that, since the half marathon "wasn't a real race" (she was clearly steamed about that terminology), cross-drafting was allowed, so I wasn't concerned about the testosterone in our pace line. In fact, I was quite happy to have some testosterone in our pace line when the men passed me and provided a nice draft. But then my inexperience showed up; although I know that it's rarely wise to abandon a paceline because it "maybe feels a little slow" and to strike out on one's own, that's what I did. Well, except I wasn't really on my own, because EB was still right on my heels.
As were the four guys.
Soon they re-passed me, and EB and I skated along behind them for quite a while. So I might just as well have saved myself the effort of passing them and skating harder for those minutes--as it turned out, I had plenty of other things to expend my energy on. EB has a bit of trouble with corners, and there were a lot of corners in this race, as well as one 180-degree turnaround, so we got gapped and had to fight our way back up to the pack several times. We got dropped pretty thoroughly by the guys when EB navigated the turnaround, which necessitated my employing all my long track sprinting skills in order to bridge back up to the pack (I'm pretty sure that's where my heart rate hit 199, its max for the day). Shortly thereafter--maybe around 8 miles, but I don't know for sure because I didn't see any mile markers--I suddenly got both very tired and a bit queasy (apparently a peanut butter and jelly sandwich 1.5 hours before the race is not prudent). So, just as I did in my last inline half marathon, I told EB to carry on without me, and I let the pack skate away from me. I eventually caught up to another Max Muscle teammate and he tried to let me draft off of him for the rest of the race, but I just couldn't keep up. I finished in 54:13.6, exactly one minute behind EB. "I've Only Skated" ended up first overall woman, EB was third, and I was fourth.
My time was way slower than what I used to do when I skated half-marathons and marathons more regularly, but since road racing is not the precisely-controlled entity that metric long track racing is, I really don't know how to evaluate that information. I, of course--being, ahem, somewhat data obsessed driven--find this a bit frustrating. I want to know exactly how today's effort compares to my previous races, and that's simply not possible, given the differences in courses, amount of draft, etc.--but I managed to have fun even without my precious data.
After we half-marathoners finished, we got to watch the marathoners cross the line. Man, am I glad I did the half--the full looked like a lot of work! Mel did great--despite getting lost (many people had difficulty following the poorly-marked course) and skating an extra mile and a half or so, she ended up second woman overall in the marathon.
After we'd all finished our respective races we had a quick dash back to the motel to check out, a quick "wedge-the-Pile-o-Crap back into the Subaru" and then a quick "somehow find a space to shoehorn Melissa into for the trip back to the race for the awards." I scored a set of bearings in the door prize drawing, so that was good.
And here we all are, post-race and pre-long-drive-home. It was a fun day (strange how we can honestly say that about something that was actually quite painful!), with fun people. I'm not ready to convert from long track ice to inline or anything, but I think I'll definitely be doing a bit more inline racing this summer than usual...I need all the fun I can get!
I greatly enjoyed this report. Totally agree about the last part, too, about the "fun" it was!
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