Safari Park Half Marathon 2012 Recap

Hello hello!

I’m warning you in advance that this post is a little long. I didn’t realize I had so much to say about the Safari Park Half Marathon yesterday.

So hmmm…. at around 7 pm Saturday night my shoulders were sore from trying to scrub off crayon from the wall, I had just lost my toenail

(you’re welcome) and had a minor freak out when I realized the last bag of broccoli slaw I got last week was bad.

I sent STUFT Daddy to Trader Joe’s immediately for 6 bags of broccoli slaw. Yep, that’s it. Nothing else. He’s awesome, isn’t he?

Sunday morning my alarm woke me up from a stupid dream where I was lost on a race course somewhere. It was one of those frustrating dreams where you just feel helpless and frantic. Not exactly the way to start a race morning and let’s just say I was not in the best of moods. Actually, I was pretty much the grumpiest person you’d ever met. I hate it when dreams do that to you.

Luckily after I bit STUFT Daddy’s head off, got dressed and had a couple sips of my mocha in my system, I snapped out of it.

I had the same breakfast sandwich as last week’s race. Maybe a little too close to the race start time though. Oops.

After a short drive to the start and a quick drop off, we found a pretty short porta-potty line. I tried out the whole trash bag to keep warm thing for about 5 minutes.

I whipped it off when I saw these guys.

I didn’t want to look silly or anything, especially in front of that guy on the right. Ha ha.

I was hanging out with my friends Laura and Matt. They’re visiting from Iowa and this was their first half marathon.

I falsely assured them the course was pretty flat the whole way until the end (unintentional of course). How nice of me though. Always looking out for my friends.

Speaking of friends, I also ran into a couple of ladies from YMCA where I teach classes. My awesome race walking friend Kristin (cool name)

and my friend Carrie.

I usually never see anyone, so of course I made them all take pictures.

I got a little ambitious and hung out up with the 7 minute mile pace folks.

They were a little intimidating.

Right before the start I took my little quiet time. I always pray, get a little teary, give thanks for the ability to run and tell myself it’s time to “leave it all on the road” (that’s from Bonnie).

(Good thing I shaved.)

The race started right on time at 6:30 am.

I actually stayed with the 7 minute mile pace group until about mile 7. (Hey, that’s convenient.)

The course was awesome. It was a point to point from the mall to the Safari Park. We ran by a winery, some ostriches, a dairy, a fruit stand, a horse ranch and through part of the park itself. There was a monster hill around mile 6 on dirt that wasn’t fun, especially because it got my Mizuno racing shoes dirty. Beavis.

I hadn’t seen many other ladies on the course the whole time after the first couple of miles so I figured I’d be in the top 10 or so.

I got passed by a cute tiny blonde gal around mile 11. I wasn’t too happy about it, but I knew she was way younger than 35 and I really liked the shorts she was wearing. So I refrained from saying any inappropriate words in my head.

Papap, the boys and Grandma D were at the finish line waiting this time (unlike last week)

so was Carol with Laura and Matt’s cute little guy Donovan.

I’m sure they were all ecstatic to be there. Ha.

Mom even managed to get a couple action shots.

Yay!

Half marathon finish time: 1:32:59

My friend Michelle gave me my medal (she works at the park too).

On the way to meet up with the fam I had to check out just how dirty my shoes got

(I guess they don’t look that bad) and ask a stranger to take yet another picture.

Then I met up with this cute lady,

posed for a picture by the lions and proceeded to get a massive calf cramp.

Laura did awesome for her first half marathon and finished way under 2 hours. She’s a rock star.

Matt rocked it too, especially for only training for a few weeks. This guy is a stud.

He looks happy to see us, yes?

Aren’t they just the cutest? They weren’t even that upset about my false information regarding the hills.

And hey, wouldn’t you know, look who decided to show up for a bit.

He still had to “work”,

but there was no way I was letting him get out of this one. He even scored some medals for the boys with his importance park status and all.

The boys made sure I stretched properly with a little “yoga”

and it wasn’t long before I was having to kiss some boo boos.

These guys are always looking out for mama (and yes, Judah can hold that position for a long time).

After scoring as many freebies as possible I made everyone go to the awards ceremony.

That’s right, the awards ceremony.

I got:

1st place in my age group out of 226.

6th place overall for the women.

I had about 5 seconds of fame until Joaquin made it very public that he wanted to see the cheetah statue.

We got out of there pretty quickly.

I did it though.

I placed in my age group. It’s been my dream for awhile now.

STUFT Daddy really wants me to win some money next time. He suggested I work a little harder.

These guys feel the same way. They’re not too impressed with my medal. Not to mention they think I only ran 4 miles.

After freezing our butts off we headed to go get some grub and ran into a few other friends on the way. My friend Stacey and her mom both ran that half. They decided to run it the night before. Talk about awesome.

Breakfast was good. The cold weather was not. Thank goodness my family had some extra clothes for me.

And well, that’s a race recap wrap.

Here’s the thing about running and racing.

You get tired.

You get sore.

You want to quit.

You ask yourself why the heck you’re doing it (and making your family suffer with you).

You tell yourself there’s a million other things you could be doing.

But…

the very next day you want to do it all over again.

Thanks for being there along the way.