Thursday, December 22, 2011

Hostess Half Marathon RR or holy crap I almost ran a sub 2 with 5 twinkies in my stomach and some powder sugar drool on my chin

On a whim I decided to the Hostess Half Marathon put on by a local runner. He likes to run a half or a full every month (been doing so for something like 2+ years now) and since there was no halves in December he created his own along with his love of Hostess products. The rules were you had to consume one hostess product at every aid station (there was 5) and then try and not throw up as you ran 13.1 miles (although there was an award for the person who threw up the most).



Sounds like fun and just craziness something to get away from the seriousness and uber competitive nature I find myself in all the time when I run. I went Christmas shopping for my wife with my sister who is down from Canada afterwords and she actually called me uber competitive in an unrelated story. I guess they have been watching the Biggest Loser and her husband came up with the idea of if you went on you would have a family member as your trainer and said he would like me as his trainer. My sister laughed at him and said I would be meaner that Dolvett because of my uber competitive nature so haha.

I actually had not even treated this race as like a pr race or a big calendar race at all and was just going to have fun with it and treat it more like a long easy run (my competitive nature totally nixed that come race morning but more on that later). I had done some speed work on Wendesday and did no taper at all for the race so my legs were a little wooden this morning for well over 3-4 miles.

I got up at 6:30am and headed out to Hurricane for the race around 7:20 as its a half hour drive. And boy was it bloody cold again this morning (28 degrees at race start and 39 and the finish). So now I am faced with the darn hoodie dilema again but decided to take the advice that was given here and wear it for the first few miles then tie it around my waist.

The first few miles were crap for me (looking at my splits on my garmin all my worst half mile splits came in the first 4 miles and after that I hit and maintained a steady 9-9:30 pace all the way to the finish after the first 4 miles). I had that foot asleep problem again because of how cold it is as well. It feels like your feet are asleep because of how cold it is and is an odd feeling to run on.

Aid station 1 comes up and I glance over the table of hostess products and decide on one of the little powdered sugar donuts as they seem the smallest. Tie my hoodie around my waist and take off once more. Somewhere between aid station 1 and 2 a chick passes me and gives me the thumbs up as she passes me it at this point I am still struggling to warm up and am really really grumpy about my race as it is not going well at all at this point and the thumbs up just made me so mad for some reason. Like kicking dirt on a wounded man, haha I am passing you and also giving you the thumbs up, I know it was just a good gestured thing but I was severly grumpy at the time at how bad my race was going. After that it became my goal to beat this lady if it killed me. She actually commented to me afterwords that I really pushed her the whole race and she ran a great race because of it.

The hoodie tied around my waist was also driving me crazy as I had to keep pulling it tight time and time again (I wouldn't think to knot it until like mile 10 so I didn't have to fight it) and trust me tightening a hoodie on your stomach with a belly full of processed sugar is not fun.

About mile 4 we come out of the shadows of the hills and actually got some sun and I finally seem to warm up at hit my strides.

Aid station 2 I grab another sugar donut thinking they are small and start my game of leap frog at the aid station with the lady who passed me. She took longer to eat her hostess products than me but was running slightly faster than me so I would hold her off as long as I could between aid stations then shoot past her at the aid stations. I decide to drop off my hoodie at aid station 2 that way at least I can be without it for 4 miles as its an out and back course.

Me and clothes are a weird thing because I was so big at times and how hard it was to get clothes I am like a hoarder when it comes ot them as I had so little of them at times. Heck I still have all my fatman clothes in boxes in the closet. So I don't like loosing clothes and it was hard for to me to leave my hoodie at the aid station but I was tired of tieing it and this decision would cost me later on.



Aid station 3 I decide to go with a twinkie because if you have never run with a powdered donut you would never know that the powdered sugar sticks in your throat and it becomes so nasty after awhile. The twinkie wasn't much better either but at least no powdered sugar clogging my airways.

Aid station 4 I am thinking I will go with one of those chocalate donuts because man that twinkie did not go well. But since this is an out and back and the leaders have already gone by as well as most of the stragglers all the tiny little donuts are gone. Crap you mean I got to eat another twinkie or something else. I decide to go with one of those hostess cupcakes not to bad but man they are big. Funny as I am choking down my cupcake someone started asking what all the calories were on everything and the cupcake was 200 calories and the twinkies only 150 crap I should have gone with a zinger maybe.

Take off and got a good lead on the lady again then about a quarter mile out I realize I forgot my hoodie at the aid station so back I go to collect my hoodie. They laugh at me why I am running back to them gran my hoodie and tie it back on (alas I wouldn't think to knot it for like 3 more miles). This wasn't bad because the course was short and my detour actually made it a full half marathon for me at least where had I not detoured it would have been .4 of a mile short. At this point the lady has got a good lead on me but I am doing everything I can to cut that lead determined to beat her (uber competitve me).

As I pull into aid station 5 she is just leaving. The volunteer laughs at me when I grimace at eating another hostess product. I go with a sugar powdered donut because I don't think I can take an other twinkie or cupcake as they are so darn big.

After that its just me trying to cut the lead of the lady in front of me. Trying to close on her, I never caught her in the end but I did give her a good run for her money thats for sure.

12 miles in its like I got a brick in my stomach ughhh a couple burps weren't very pretty and could have gone the wrong way for sure.



I finished in 2:01:41 which amazingly enough would have been a pr back in November before I ran my 1:55xx at Snow Canyon. My worst half mile split for the entire race were 2.5-3.0 and 3.0-3,5 (10:09 and 10:18) and the only time I ran over a 10mm the entire race, hence me being so grumpy. In comparison I ran a 9:00 at mile 11-11.5 and a 9:05 from 11.5-12 talk about finishing strong even with a belly full of hostess products.

I then went shopping with my sister and got some real food in me (we went to Chilis for lunch and I had their salad and soup). I liked the race and would totally do it again but just make sure I take the chocolate donuts next time. One crazy fool had 12 hostess products (you got an award for eating the most) I was happy with my bare minimum I didn't need anymore flair.

1 comment:

  1. Okay that was funny, and I want to run it....

    http://briansrunningadventures.blogspot.com/

    my blog
    Brian

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