I am officially BACK. On Sunday, along with several dozen of my friends and thousands of strangers, I ran the "Donna" Breast Cancer Half Marathon. This was my redemption race post-hysterectomy, and I came back with a bang!
Donna is a race my friends and I have been doing for the last four years because it's awesome - it's a 13.1 mile party with amazing spectators, lots of "beverages" and fun times to be had by all, so I can't think of a better race to make my return to racing.
We flew into Jacksonville on Friday, and Mel and I got to meet our "running guru," Jeff Galloway and chat with him for a few minutes! He claims to remember us from several events he's done with the Dallas PGL's, but he's also a really nice guy and would probably say that anyway.
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| Mel & me with Jeff! |
Saturday was a bum around the beach kind of day with lots of time with good friends, good food, and good drinks. We relaxed, walked in the surf, and prepped for the run the next day.
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| Friends! |
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| View from our balcony |
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| Booze! |
Sunday morning, race morning, dawned foggy and slightly chilly (for Florida). We welcomed the overcast skies as the forecast was for a warm and clear day, which makes for rough running conditions. The good news is that we weren't taking the race seriously - we were all about the fun, with planned picture, "beverage," and snack stops along the route.
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| My awesome group of friends pre-race |
I'd been training using an interval of 15 second run / 45 second walk, so the plan was just to continue with that and see how it was going. We had a ton of fun running, and met friends old and new along the course.
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| Old friends! |
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| New friends (left) we met on course! |
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| Friendly strangers! |
The tough spot is always the last few boring miles heading to the Mayo Clinic, over a huge causeway bridge, but we kept up my run/walk intervals the whole way to the top and stopped to take a quick picture at the crest of the hill.
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| Mile 12 at the top of the bridge! |
We finished strong with a 3:20, which was an over 30 minute course PR for me!
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| Texas ladies together! |
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| Finished! |
Then we continued our tradition of using the Atlantic Ocean as a post-race ice bath and consuming even more "beverages," lol.
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| Bayou Rum punch bucket! |
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| Ocean ice bath! |
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| 10th anniversary medal |
I am SO happy to be back to racing and really looking forward to my upcoming spring full of great races and what I know will be more great times with friends!
