Marty was supposed to do the Wrightsville Beach Half
Marathon this past Saturday and Logan and I were either going to hang out back
home or watch Marty and hit the beach if the weather was nice. Early in the week the weather was looking
pretty good so we were tentatively planning on the latter. Then Marty’s mom,
who lives in Florida, got very sick so he and Logan high tailed it down there
and all of the sudden I was left to my own devices here in NC. I was thinking
of movies and sleeping in and great training without any time constraints. Then
this girl says, “Now you can do the Sampson County Super Sprint with us!”
hmmmmm oof. A super sprint was not really in my plans and trying to wrap my
head around that was a little difficult. Although they are short, if done
right, they hurt the entire time (spoiler alert: that’s exactly how it ended up
feeling).
Several other friends were going to do this race and we all
planned to ride 50 miles after to get our long ride for the weekend in on
country roads. The weather ended up
being awesome; I had done this race back in 2013 and it was FREEZING and I had
vowed never to do it again. This year was perfect.
I started 10 seconds behind Carrie in the time trial pool
swim start and let’s be honest, this is a definite advantage. I promised her
that if we do another pool swim this year I will make sure she starts behind me
(There. It’s in writing). Just 250 yards, and the end of it was messy with open
turns and slower people. Got out and ran as fast as possible to transition.
Literally every second counts in these short races! The 7 mile bike is out and
back with several turns where I was able to see that I was still holding around
a 10 second gap to Carrie. Then towards the end of the bike I got a little held
up with some cars on the course and literally thought that was probably the
race. Out on the run (2 miles) I was hoping that my piriformis/hamstring issue
didn’t flare up and although I was breathing like a freight train and it was
very hard, I actually felt ok. And Carrie was ever so slightly coming back to
me. I finally got almost up to her shoulder before she put in a late surge
(Dangit! DO NOT let all that hard work go to waste!) but was able to hold it together
to the finish line where she crossed just in front of me. Time wise I finished
8 seconds ahead of her, and she finished 1 second ahead of 3rd
place!! Talk about a tight race!
Afterwards we changed for our bike ride which was super
windy but an awesome workout and finished up with burgers and milkshakes at a
local eatery around corner from the race site. Fun race, fun people, fun day. (PS - Marty's mom is doing well!)
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| Don't let the smiles fool you into thinking we weren't sputtering messes at the finish line.
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