Finding Fit at 30

13.1 June 9, 2009

Where to start? What a fitness filled weekend I had! One that included my goal of completing my first half marathon. Let me start with Saturday…

About a month ago, my best friend signed us up for the Urban Adventure Omaha race, the 1st of it’s kind in our city. We had no idea what to expect as teams don’t really get details about what to do until the day of the race. Saturday morning came and after a night of thunderstorms, the morning was pretty gloomy. I met my team (my friend and her boyfriend) at their house at 7:15. On the way I stopped for a totally nutritious breakfast, an egg and cheese mcmuffin:



Here’s the team, me, Schia and David:


After arriving at their house, I realized I had forgotten my helmet and without it, I wouldn’t be able to participate. I was panicking! I had left it by my pack and totally forgot to grab it! After a phone call to the husband, he met us at the lake plenty of time before we started. What a good husband!

For not knowing what to expect, this race turned out to be tons of fun! If there is one like it in your area, you should definitely sign up! We started out biking from Carter Lake to downtown Omaha where we had various checkpoints to mark off of our card that had us running through downtown. Different check in points would give us other instructions on where to go next. It even involved a water slide (FUN!) and ending with “kayaking” in Carter Lake after biking back there from downtown. Kayaking involved an inner tube and kayak paddle, yeah we got soaked. It was awesome though! I will definitely sign up for this again next year!

Saturday night I took it easy. No wild bar nights since the CB half started at 7am. We spent time with the husband’s family since it was our niece’s 10th birthday. Of which we did not get her the cell phone she wanted. Instead she got a Nintendo DS game and a Miley Cyrus book. 10 year olds wanting cell phones, I feel so old! I did have this to eat since the husband heard quinoa was good to eat before a race.
Quinoa and edamame:



Sunday morning involved more dark skies and I really hoped it wouldn’t rain for my first race. Unfortunately, my wish was not granted and right after the gun went off, it started raining. And not just sprinkling, a nice steady rain that soaked everyone. My nice, new shoes really took a beating and I think my Nike+ bit the dust. Here’s some pre-race fuel and I think it was the perfect amount to eat before running. I ate it two hours prior to the start. Wheat bagel with PB, banana and honey:



The race went great though besides the rain! I was really worried since the longest run I’d done was 10 miles and I’d never run in inclement weather before. I felt great, stopping at mile 6 with my friend I was running it with to have a Clif gel and some water. We walked for about a minute and I ran with her until about mile 9. I didn’t want to stop any more as it’s hard for me to get going again. After stopping, the pain has a minute to catch up so it’s easier to just keep on keepin’ on. And I was really hoping to make a time of 2:10:00. About mile 11 is where I started to get pretty tired. My shoulders hurt, my ankles hurt and I wanted to stop but I pressed on and finished really strong. When one of the volunteers said we only had .25 of a mile left, I thanked the sweet baby Jesus and sped up, excited to be done! Although I didn’t make the 2 hour 10 minute time, I a. did not puke and b. did not finish last. I finished with a time of 2:12:13 and ranked 364 out of 566 finishers. For just starting to get into running this year and not really following a training program until a month before the race, I’m pretty happy with the result.

Post race, Todd suggested we go eat at my favorite restaurant in town, McFosters. First, I had to shower and comb through this mess:



Gross right? I really need to start braiding my hair before running. It was a tangled ball! After tackling that mess we headed to Omaha and McFosters was awesome, as always. It’s the only place in town that offers mostly vegetarian and vegan options. I had a cup of coffee to warm up with:



Todd thought some wheatgrass shots would be an appropriate way to toast my success. As a sidenote, we’re thinking of trying to grow this stuff ourselves since it’s just grass and should be easy. And it’s really good for you. 10 years ago I never would have dreamed of drinking grass. Smoking it maybe, but drinking it?



And for breakfast, I ordered the omelet with mustard greens and Thai curry sauce. The hashbrowns are vegan so they weren’t loaded down with a bunch of butter. It was really good and look! They throw little edible flowers on it to make it pretty:



Oh, and a side of fruit:



You can bet I ate it all, I was so hungry when we got there I thought I might gnaw on the edge of the table. After the race I had snagged an apple and Todd grabbed a powerbar for me but that barely quieted down the hungry beast in my stomach.

I suppose this post is long enough but I can’t say enough how awesome it was to complete that distance and I’m excited to sign up for another one. I’m off now to meet some friends for lunch at…McFoster’s! Twice in one week!