2013 Lung Strong 15k

September 29, 2013 7:45 AM
Cornelius, North Carolina

	Time	Pace	Division	Division Place	Gender Place	Overall Place	Bib #
Malissa	1:40:32	10:47	F30-34	28/36	150/215	297/380	174
Lynne	1:52:02	12:01	F45-49	27/29	192/215	352/380	4

Written by Malissa:

Lung Strong 15k

I am in the middle of training for my second marathon. I’ll be running the Louisiana Marathon the beginning of January. I’m super excited that I talked my friend Lynne into running the marathon with me. It’s going to be her first marathon and it will be so nice to have someone to talk to on all those long training runs. 

Lynne mentioned that she wanted to run the Lung Strong 15k so I asked if she minded if I tagged along. It fit perfectly into my training for the Outer Banks Half that I’m running this November and it runs along beautiful Lake Norman. It’s my first race since my disastrous Nashville race and getting my heal lift. Lynne and I train at a comfortable talking pace so I also wanted to use this race to see what pace I should run the Outer Banks Half Marathon in November.

I went back and forth on what my pace should be. The most I've ran in training was eight miles so I worried if I pushed it too much in the beginning I wouldn’t have enough gas left to finish the race strong. So I fiddled around with a bunch of different paces and finally decided I would make a pace tattoo for 1:44 (11:10 pace) and that would be the pace that I for sure didn’t want to go slower than but if I felt good after the first three miles I would pick up the pace a little more.

Owen and the boys volunteered to help out on the course so we arrived super early so they could get to their spot at mile 4 before the race started. I was looking forward to seeing Alicia, Katie (Lynne’s daughter), and Mike (Lynne’s husband) at few spots along the course too.

During the first mile I entered Jetton Park. There are beautiful tall green trees on both sides of the street with the lake peeking through. Just up ahead of me I could see my friend Udit so I sped up a little to catch up to him. Udit was running with a friend of his and we all chatted for a few minutes. I felt really good and contemplated running with them for a little while longer but I decided I better play it safe and hang back a little since it was still so early on in the race.  

It’s amazing how much it helps to see familiar faces a long the course. This course was a little harder than I thought it was going to be so it was really nice to have family and friends cheering along the way. It really gave me a boost.

About mile six my hip started aching. I was really bummed. I had high hopes that with the combination of my heal lift and physical therapy that this time around would be pain free. Both Outer Banks and Louisiana are completely flat so I’m hoping that the pain has more to do with running up and down hills than the distance itself. We shall see…

I remember thinking at about mile seven, why am I running this race again? At that point I was glad that I didn’t try and keep up with Udit and his friend. There is no way that I would have lasted at their pace. There was a runner in front of me that had a braided ponytail and would break out in random dance.  I kept telling myself, follow the ponytail, follow the ponytail. It was somewhere around this time that I saw Alicia, Katie, and Mike one last time. It was a nice surprise because I didn’t think I would see them again until the finish line. They had been there for a little while so all the other people standing by knew my name and were cheering for me too. Just what I needed because my hip was hurting pretty bad and I could feel my body starting to shut down a little.

The last .3 seemed to take forever and I was starting to doubt that I could keep going. I wanted to walk so badly but then I turned the corner and could see all my cheerleaders cheering for me. Owen and the boys even made it back to the finish line. Even with the hip pain it was a great race. There's just something about pushing yourself to the max.

After I crossed the finish line I grabbed a granola bar and water and then limped my way over to my crew to cheer Lynne to the finish.  After Lynne finished we talked for a few minutes and then I found the ponytail runner and thanked her for her random dancing because it helped get me to the finish line.

On the way home I stopped for a pumpkin latte. I'm a black coffee kind of girl but for some reason I was craving a pumpkin latte and it was so good. Once we got home I showered and while Owen was getting dressed to go for his run I fainted. It was a weird faint because my eyes were still open and I could hear everything that was going on but I couldn't talk. At first Owen thought I was joking but then I could hear the concern in his voice. I had a tingly sensation rush over my body and once that was done I could talk again. It was weird but I had a feeling it had to do with my sodium levels so  I had some salty wheat thins and then I was fine. There was no Gatorade on the course and I remember craving it at the finish line but there wasn't any there either. 

I talked with my doctor on Friday and he's pretty sure my electrolytes were just low after the race. (I had been watching my sodium the week before for weight-loss reason.) He told me it was ok to keep running but I need to add a little sodium back in my diet especially before a race. I ran 13 miles on Monday and didn't have any issues. I made sure to drink Gatorade right after I finished. From what I hear this is a pretty common thing with runners because you lose so much salt when you sweat during a race but I would be lying if I didn't say that it freaked me out a little....