Strides 4 Stroke Recap

My Sunday morning began at 5am.  When my alarm went off, my first thought was I’m exhausted, followed by OMG my sunburn kills!  Bry and I went to Wildwood yesterday and the backs of my legs got BURNT.  I wanted to do was to go back to bed, but I knew I had to get moving if I wanted to leave the house at 6am.  So, I rolled out of bed and looked outside.  It was still pretty dark when I woke up!

I was happy that I already knew what I was wearing today when I woke up:  my Lucy Cross Country Cutie Tank and Endurance Skirt in the print “lagoon.”  A month ago, Lucy Activewear contacted me to do a product review on a few of their products.  I knew I’d want to get something for the summer (obviously) and to wear for upcoming races.  I never owned a running skirt, and figured there’s no better time than now… just in time for hot summer runs.  The thing that I hate about wearing compression shorts is that they tend to ride up.  This skirt has compression shorts underneath and they don’t even move! The skirt also has reflective strips, moisture-wicking material and an internal drawcord.  It’s SO comfortable.  I want to wear it everywhere!  The tank is amazing as well.  I love it because I don’t have to wear a sports bra with it and it’s moisure-wicking too.

After getting dressed in pain (this sunburn is terrible!), I put on some aloe to ease the burn.  It didn’t help much, but it felt good for about 5 minutes.

Breakfast was a banana.  I usually have oatmeal before races, but yesterday was so hot that anything warm was the last thing I wanted.

Bry and I left the house a little after 6am and drove down to the Philadelphia Museum of Art.  Traffic wasn’t bad at all and we ended up getting down there around 6:40am.  This gave us enough time to find a parking spot, walk to the front of the museum and check in.

Because we got there so early, we were able to hang out around the art museum for a while.  The crowds of people didn’t start showing up until close to 7:45.  There were a few vendors set up, but for the most part the race didn’t have too many things to eat pre-race.  The Race for Hope I ran last winter had much more pre-race food like fresh fruit, animal crackers, and bagels.

About 20 minutes before the race started, there was a quick warmup with a few local fitness instructors… and spiderman. Yes, spiderman.  Check out that sunburn on the backs on my legs!

Once the race started, I was feeling pretty good.  Mile 1 went by pretty quickly.  Right around mile 1.5 when I turned around to head back, I stopped to get a drink of water from the volunteers.  This was when it all went down hill.  I had to stop around 1.7 to throw up.  All that came up was water, so I felt okay to keep going.  From 1.7-2.5 I had a KILLER cramp.  It was the most painful cramp I’ve ever had while running.  Needless to say, I didn’t meet my goal of a 5K in under 30 minutes.  When I saw my Nike+ app pass the number 28:00, I almost cried.  I didn’t though, because as soon as I started to feel like I was going to cry, I realized it was making it harder to breathe.  I still had almost a half of a mile to go and knew that I wasn’t going to cross the finish line before 30:00.  I hobbled across the finish line and Bry was there to take some pictures of my not so grand finale.

My unofficial time was 32:40.  Take a look at my splits.  As I hit mile 1, I knew that I could actually finish in under 30, but unfortunately the heat got the best of me.

After crossing the finish line, I was handed a water and a Powerade Zero.  After passing out in the grass for about 5 minutes, I walked over to the Philly Soft Pretzel tent to gobble down a delicious soft pretzel.

Overall, I had an okay time.  I was so excited to hopefully have a PR, but that didn’t happen.  I am very proud of myself for finishing at all.  There were many times when I just wanted to sit on the sideline and wait for someone to pick me up and carry me to the finish line.  Although I had to take a lot of walking breaks during the 2nd half, I finished.  That is all I could have hoped for.