New Orleans Half Marathon and Getting Back the Mojo

First a brief recap of my New Orleans Half Marathon race.  In spite of having a pretty crummy cold, I did venture down to New Orleans the last weekend in January to run the RnR Half Marathon. This was part of a tribute event from an On-line Running Group that I've been privy to be part of since 2000. The group started as a Q and A board led by Hal Higdon and sponsored somewhat by the Chicago Marathon, and it grew from there.  Several of us became regulars and a group of us met and ran the NOLA Half and Full Marathons in February, 2005.  It was a great weekend filled with fantastic memories including Speedy M, Swishy Brian, Farnk and others getting Julie her BQ, Farnk ending up in the medical tent, Scuba dancing in a cage, and all of us celebrating by doing the Bob in the Superdome.  

A group of us decided to carry on the tradition and return to the scene of the crime 10 years later. Although many of our lives have changed quite a bit since then, three of us original NOLA travelers returned: Farnk, Mike, and myself.  

The race is now run by Competitor as part of their Rock 'N Roll race series and although I'm not thrilled with Competitor or their races (especially after they abruptly pulled out of Cleveland after just one year), New Orleans is still a fun place to spend time and also run.  I didn't run a very smart race in that I started with the 1:45 pacer and got ahead of him too quickly.  Of course the 4.5 mile turn around when I saw how far up I was on the group, I didn't slow down, but continued figuring my fitness was good and that my cold wouldn't affect me.  That plan came crashing down around 11 miles when I thought that I might drop as I became dizzy and nauseous.  I was able to regroup and finish and actually ended up with a decent time of 1:43:49 and 3rd in my AG (429/7699 overall and 110/4920 women).  As you can see these are big races and there are lots of runners of all abilities, so they make great destination races, but given that, they really don't care too much for the actual runner.  The swag is ok in that the shirt is a tech shirt ad they give you a generic backpack gear bag, the medal is fine, but the food after the race is pretty dismal and they charge for anything better.  The NOLA race treated the marathon as a bit of an after thought and even though they had some decent after race entertainment, the course entertainment lacked. I guess it can be considered a victory that each runner gets a Mich Ultra after the race if they want it.  Not sure I needed that kind of beer tasting water at 10 am.  It was still great however to spend the time away from the cold and snow (even if it was 40F for the race, you could wear shorts) and be with friends. I returned home feeling rather beat up however and my cold came back with a bit of a vengeance though which made for a very tough last week.  I was holding out though for February.

And alas February is here, and if this doesn't inspire me this year, I'm not sure what will....

Boston received a lot of snow last week, and some guy actually shoveled off the finish line.  They got some 24", and he shoveled it  - its an iconic place of course, but that is very cool.

So things are starting to fall back in place after a so-so January.  I caught this cold that I just couldn't shake and even though I had an awesome time in New Orleans and ran a decent half marathon (time-wise even if the race was poorly executed), February has arrived and I've started to feel better and my running has picked up.  Yup, even with the snow, and although we haven't received the 40" that Boston has in 2 weeks, we have received our fair share. 

Last night, we did our "speedwork" for the week outside as it was relatively warm in that it was 28F. I was very skeptical as I am not a good snow runner and although the stretch of road we ran on was indeed plowed, it still had a fine layer of snow/slush in several spots and was slippery here and there. The first 1K seemed slow and tough, but as we moved on through the next three, they seemed to get easier and our overall pace was quicker.  I doubt that I could have run any faster on the track and track surface, it was not.  It's too bad though that the local high school asked us not to shovel the track as they are worried about the surface.  I get that as the surface is relatively new.  I never would have run as fast on the snow as I did last night without the continues motivation of my Sole Train Group 3 buddies.  Thanks so much for all you do for me every single week.  The rest of the week bars for an easy 6 miler today, a tempo/progression run tomorrow, and a 14+ miler on Saturday. Good news is that Saturday is supposed to be warm albeit possibly rainy.  Bad news is that the group long run is scheduled for Lock 29 which is the Towpath.  This girl just isn't ready to run on a possibly muddy, snow covered trail.  Hope some folks want to run in the Metroparks as I know the path will be clear.

I'm also participating in a "Real Food Challenge" and although my eating habits are not too bad, I am finding places where I need improvement: specifically, no bagels and no sugar in my coffee.  Other than that, I do ok except that I really don't like smoothies and lots of the suggested recipes involve them.  I guess I might actually like them if I owned a blender and I think I'm going to go out an invest in an inexpensive one at Walmart or Target.  Something for me to do this weekend besides run while I'm home alone yet another weekend.

My New England Patriots won the Super Bowl and Boston University advanced to the Beanpot final for the first time in 3 yrs - so I guess that all is really pretty good with the world as it is now February.  11 weeks and I'll see that finish line and hopefully by then, all the snow will be melted!

(And I almost forgot to mention, that I did go to NOLA this year, and yes it has probably snowed everyday since - lol)