wicked halloween race recap/review

Hello all! I'm alive! This is the longest I've gone without blogging.  I've been a combination of busy and lazy. Plus I wasn't running all that much so it seemed silly to blog and say, "hi there, I didn't run today, I did homework." Borefest.  However, I ran a real race yesterday. That means a blog post. And I promise I'll have a real blog post about all the other "exciting" (sarcasm) stuff going on soon.

This was the second year for the Wicked Halloween Run and a course I love. My current PR holds from there last year, so it holds a special place in my heart. Saturday morning, Ryan and I ventured to downtown plymouth to pick up my packet (he wasn't running) and meet up with my parents. I was a fan of the race 'swag'.

shirt, hat, and bumper sticker.  Pretty nice!

I got the rest of my costume after and decided to try it on to make sure it was good to go for the morning:

Those black stripes on my shirt? Are made from electrical tape hehe.

I knew it was supposed to be cold, so my running tights were worn under the striped tights and I had on THREE black shirts.  

The race was set to start at 8am and I set my alarm for 6ish. Ryan and I went to the world series game the night before and didn't get home until almost 2, which means I didn't sleep until 3. Needless to say, those 3 hours were NOT enough. I did not feel ready to function, let alone run 6.2 miles.

Since my mileage has been LOW recently, my only goal was to just finish. No time goals, just get it done.  

I met up with the fam about 20 mins before the race for some obligatory pics:

Ryan, you better watch it, or RunnerSis^2 is going to take your spot permanently in the race circuit :P

RunnerDad was doing the 5k and the rest of us were doing the 10k. It was RunnerSis^2 first one! RunnerSis and RunnerBro were going to help her through it.  

After chatting and freezing, I met up with a few other friends. I finally got to meet my twitter friends, Jen and Sharry.  Jen and I have only been trying to meet up forever!

Me, Jen, Sharry, and Jen's friend (I forgot her name, I'm so sorry!)

Soon it was time to head to the start. We ran into my friend, Amber, and snapped a pic with her.

They had pace groups, so we went off to our respective areas. I lost Jen, Sharry, and friend, so tried to meet up with Alexis, since she seems to be my racing partner in crime recently. We found each other and I thought we might run together. The race started only a few minutes after 8 (it was a little chaotic as people were still getting race packets right before). 

Alexis and I

I spied Coach Ken and gave him a quick hi as I started off. I lost Alexis almost immediately.  It was just me, my running shoes, my tunes...and my pesky wings. They were fine to run with, but I was dodging and weaving...and accidentally hitting people with them.  Sorry folks!

I found a good groove and stuck with it. I did the first mile around 8:30ish and decided to kick it up a tiny bit. Somewhere between 1 and 2 I saw Detroit Runner and we chatted for a few, then went on our way. I hit mile 2 and 3 at a bit faster pace. Mile 4 was similar. Right before mile 5 tough, my knee, which hasn't bothered me in forever, started to act annoying. I slowed a tiny bit and it seemed okay then, so I sped up again. 

It was sort of hurting, but not completely. After I hit mile 5, it was really becoming an annoyance and I slowed a ton, I saw a "10-something" on my watch and decided just to go by feel. That last mile was a mix of slow, speeding up, slowing down, etc. I ended up doing it in 9-something. I tried to give it all I had the last .20, but my knee was just playing mind games with me. More a nag, than a true pain.  

I crossed the finish and got my medal. Detroit Runner chatted with me for a minute, but I was a mixture of tired and worried about my knee. I sat down for a minute and tried to gain my bearings. Then, I proceeded to freeze for the next hour as I watched the rest of the racers come through.  It was worth it though to see RunnerSis^2 finish her first 10k! Amber get a 10k PR and my dad cross yet another 5k finish line!

all three of them finishing together

and the daddy-o finishing strong!

If I were more coherent, I would have taken pics of some costumes, but I didn't.  Whoops. Just know there were some good ones. Overall, this was a great race and was well organized, as always. My only qualm was it was a madhouse trying to get food after the race, so I didn't get anything, even though I really wanted a panera bread bagel.  Oh well.

I ended up doing the race in 52:46, MUCH better than I expected! 14th in age group out of 122 and 316 overall out of 1500. I will definitely take it!

race bling that felt well earned!

I ran two miles today and my knee felt mostly fine.  So weird and random yesterday. Oh well, it happens!  

I had a blast yesterday no matter what (you know I love costume races). Even if it was chilly, I was going off little sleep, and had weird knee issues. I'll definitely be doing this race again next year.  Halloween races are just way too fun!  :)

Oh and post-race? I promptly came home, took that above picture, and fell FASSSSTTTT asleep ;)

PS - a big thank you to Kona running company for allowing me to be a race ambassador for this race!

Let's chat:

-Anyone else do a halloween race this weekend?  How'd it go?

-If you didn't race, did you do something halloween-y? Did you dress up?

-what's been going on with you?! share one fun thing in your life right now!

Friends on the east coast, I hope you're all safe! Sending thoughts your way.  

Megan