13.1 Ft. Lauderdale RR

Today, I ran the 13.1 Ft. Lauderdale.  This was my first HM in 2009 and it has a special place in my heart.  This year, they changed the course which made it tougher (with the first 5 miles full of bridges).  However, the weather was cooler than usual with a nice 20mph twister wind. 

My plan was to run this workout as an MP run with 5-10 MP miles, depending on how I felt today.  The 5K effort on Friday really tired me out and when I went to bed last night, I was still sore from it.

Woke up at 4:45am to head to Ft. Lauderdale at 5am.  Race starts at 6:35am and the last two years, I've spent the National Anthem inside the potta potty doing my business.  This time, with the change of course, I knew I had to get there early to be able to find parking and use the potties before the start, as I know the area and the amount of runners that would be there.

Got there at 5:30am and by 6am I was parked (see what I mean about traffic?)  Got into the potta potty and went WTF?  No toilet paper.  That never happens in this race and of course, I needed to take care of business and fast.  I was debating whether to get out of that potta pottie and find one with paper (which would mean another 30 minutes in line) when a guy yelled that he had toilet paper and yelled at him to get one. I could've kissed him!

OK, so I'm out and ready to go.  5K started at 6:30am and we started 5 minutes later.  The course is new and takes us from downtown to the river where we got to feel the wonderful 20mph headwind to downtown back to the famous tunnel.  Going down the tunnel is fun and everybody yells.  Going up the tunnel is much harder.  HR went crazy there.

I do my first two miles as easy as I can and then go up to MP HR and start passing people.  I started together with the 2:15 pace group but since I always warm up first, I lost them early.  By Mile 8 I caught up with them.  By Mile 9, I passed them and never saw them again.

The MP miles felt very easy and I felt strong throughout.  I cannot believe I just ran a marathon two weeks ago and a PR effort 5K two days prior.  My GERD meds are finally helping and my cough is almost gone (although I did cough twice during the race).  The legs knew none of this.  At Mile 4 we get to the beach and boy did the 20mph made themselves felt.  By Mile 6, I noticed the palm trees were horizontal.  At Mile 7, we entered into a twister wind gust of more than 20mph winds.  I was very close to losing my bib from Miles 7 through 9.  My hat too.  I ran holding both for 4 miles.

The turnaround was at Mile 9 and soon thereafter I passed the 2:15 group.  I noticed they were too fast for that pace because I was already running close to 2:10 and they were ahead of me.  Oh, well, their problem.

At Mile 10, my chest tightened and at Mile 11 I had to stop to use the inhaler.  I only used one pump and that seemed to work, so I knew it was time to cut the MP miles and at Mile 11, I slowed down.  Miles 12 and 13 were easy and I raced to the finish line.  At Mile 13 I had to stop to fix the sock (damn toe!) but otherwise, everything worked out fine today.  Finished in 2:11:12 (official).  Last year they screwed up my results so I hope mine are correct this time around.

Although this is far from my PR (and I was not looking for a PR today), there are several things that I am happy with today:

  • No major asthma issues.
  • The MP miles felt very easy.
  • I did 9 @ MP, which I've not done since I did Pfitz last year (before asthma) MP distance wise.
  • I ran strong throughout.
I think this is my strongest performance this year.  Everything worked out fine and I think I would've run 2:08 or close to my PR if it was not for the wind.  So I'm very happy with it.

I don't have any pictures to bore you with, sorry.

Here is me.  Look how windy the race was:




Thanks for reading!

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