Date: April 28, 2011
Location: Downtown Nashville, TN
Weather: 50-60's
Conditions:
Report: 4:55:17 - And a negative split :) Well just barely - was hoping to break 5 so I'm very happy with that! It was an unbelievable experience, I'm so glad I was able to do it!! It was tough though, very hilly but weather was awesome and it went well. I had iced/heated knee about 3 times between our phone call and the race. Right knee flared up before mile 1 - started getting really tough at 5-6. By mi. 10 it was really bad and I started to tear up wondering if i could finish lol - I stopped and stretched 5 or 6 times through the whole thing, took water breaks at every stop or every other at max. Walked through them like you said and did gu & electrolyte tabs several times throughout duration. I noticed it started hurting worse when I walked, and it got easier when i maintained a good 10min pace while focusing on mechanics, so I tried to skip every other water break i could towards the middle and picked back up stopping at each towards the end. I found an itb band at the expo to wrap around the leg, about an inch above the knee. Figured it might help so I got it. Wore it starting out but after a while I took it off to see if that would help and the pain wasn't as bad with it off - thought that was ironic, maybe that was a bad idea? Mi. 21-23 was probably the worst section - at this point, the course had you run up one side of the road and then back down the other so you were running across from people a few miles ahead of you so that really made that section seem to drag out. I started getting a little tired and hot then too. I pushed through the pain and said alot of prayers :) Overall Bryant, I felt awesome. Never really got out of breath, and never felt tired or give out. I only felt I needed to walk 3 or 4 times so walking through stops helped. Going down the hills hurt so much worse than climbing them - I contemplated dropping & rolling down at one point but figured that was probably frowned upon.
Recovery: Afterwards walking was tough - at least bending my right knee was. From the bottom of my kneecap up the side of my leg and to the front inside of my hip were the hot spots. A med person strapped ice to both immediately after so I had that on for a good 20 min. Last night & this morning when I went to get in/out of bed it was tough on the upper hip part to pick that leg up. It's getting better though. Calves were sore this morning so besides the knee that's it.
I'm very glad it's finished, but kinda sad now!! Whatever will I do... Is it crazy that I'm ready to go again??
