On Sunday, August 26th, I ran in the Eugene Women’s Half Marathon. I did so with some trepidation but, at the same time, I decided to enjoy myself regardless of the outcome.
Though I had trained for this half, I was concerned about my IT Band issues as well as my new running shoes.
I have been working on strengthening my IT Bands before and, more so, after the Seattle Rock ‘n’ Roll Half. I didn’t want a repeat of that run.
My running shoes were fairly new and with my last long training run, the bottoms of my feet hurt. My orthotics didn’t fit in these new lighter, less structured shoes. This was a major concern since I had a stress fracture on the bottom of my right foot 4 years ago.
The Eugene Women’s Half draws a smaller crowd which is nice. And no one could have asked for a more perfect day for a run. The cloud cover kept the temperature down around the mid-60s with no hint of rain or humidity. The majority of this route is on their river walk which is in a park-like setting.
About 3 1/2 miles into the run.
I decided to enjoy the scenery and the run which turned out to be the best combination for me. I turned up my music, sang along to the tunes, and took pictures during the walks of my 9 minute run/1 minute walk intervals.
The river was a mixture of calm and some small rapids.
But I must admit that I couldn’t totally ignore my need to have some type of timed goal on this run.
That goal was to run 1 mile splits as evenly as I could. I set up my Garmin to alert me at each mile marker and flash the time. I didn’t want to pace too fast in the beginning only to fade at the end. By doing it this way, I managed to stay within about a minute between my slowest and fastest time. And there was an unexpected bonus, I felt much better than I’ve ever felt at the end of this run.
Only 2.1 miles to go!
As for my concerns, my right IT Band did bother me as I neared the 11 mile marker but it wasn’t enough to make me walk the rest of the way. Also around this marker, my socks started to bunch around the bottom of my toes which was bothersome. But more important to me, my feet never did hurt.
As I crossed the finish line, I thought I was close to my Portland Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon time. It wasn’t until I got my text from Eugene Women’s Half event planners that I realized I PR-ed. I was 5 minutes 8 seconds faster!
And, of course, we can’t forget the bling that we all secretly run for.
Bling