freedom run 2010

Angie again...

Last weekend Suzanne and I decided (pretty much a few days before) that we were going to run the Freedom Half Marathon. Bad idea for me- being that I had trained one week of the previous three (due to a road trip and a week off after my last race). But I decided I'd give it a go and just take it easy. That turned out to be easier said than done.

This race boasts bunches and bunches of downhill, and only 700 something feet of incline. I was thinking it would be a breeze (like our race in august will be). But no- it was brutal downhill, then very steep uphill, followed by more brutal downhill, etc. The beginning of the race was all downhill, and it was so steep that we ran the first 4 miles in just over 30 minutes. For all of you math freaks, that's a 7 and a half minute mile. Then we turned a corner and up it went- straight up. I swear, the inclined hills were pretty much impossible to run, so we walked them. Then we'd hit a downhill and go kamakaze, trying to watch our steps so we didn't fall on our faces. It was crazy, and let's just say that I'll never sign up for that race again. I prefer a race on more level ground.

That being said, it was great to see Suzanne. And how did we do? Well, I started walking after a few hills around m mile 7 and watched Suzanne fade into the distance (nice bum, where ya from?). Once I started walking, it was pretty much over from there on out. I'd run about a half mile and then walk for about 30 seconds. S did awesome and finished quite a bit earlier than me (I'll let her post and tell you more about it), and I finished just under 2:06. I thought I did a lot worse than that, but it turns out that running really fast down steep hills will help you make up a lot of that walking time!

I did get a great belly shirt out of it, though. Seriously- it's that short. Maybe I shouldn't have joked about getting belly shirts for the August race- it's come back to bite me. But the biggest disappointment is that it's a good looking shirt! Ayzha happily wears it for me.