Up at 5:50am. brush teeth, get dressed, out the door by 6:15am.
6:55am meet Coach in Tualatin. start driving to Corvallis.
7:30am - eat 2 gels for breakfast and drink a 5hr energy.
......while we're driving Joel says to me. "You have the PERFECT day. you have rested legs. No rain. 50 degrees. You're in the best shape of your life. NO LIMITS Nicole!". ( I had said I didn't think I could get below 1:34..I was happy with 1:34-1:35)
He just about bit my head off and gave me the lecture of how powerful the mind was and told me how he ran his best half when he wasn't scared to push his limits.
I decided right then that I had no limits. My RACE PLAN was to make sure I did the FIRST MILE SLOW. Goal was 7:50 then drop to 7:15 and hold.........BUT if I found myself running faster ...then don't be AFRAID of it. Trust my body.
I arrived excited and ready to give it my all. My coach is an awesome coach and one of my greatest friends/supporters. Thanks Joel for the pre-race pep talk:) (reason #404 for having a coach).
Me and Becky were racing and Joel and Helen were taking turns pacing us.
I looked at Becky right before we left for the start line and I said "Becky, you go for the win.Promise me you'll hold nothing back! you go for it! you give it EVERYTHING you've got!".
we did a quick warm up but were paranoid about bathroom lines and only had 15min til the race started. we changed out fo warm ups and headed to the porty potty.
Now it's 8min til race start and the line up is HUGE! I am freaking out b/c I HAVE TO change my tampon and go pee or else I'd be peeing all over myself the whole race! lol...not cool.
Becky looks at me and says, I'm sorry, I'm skipping the potty, I have to go !
I was so torn, I knew I HAD to go to the bathroom but didn't want to miss the gun!
I said a Prayer "God please help me know what to do...i'm running out of time"....
Just then a girl runs out of a local building yelling "BATHROOM ON THE 2ND FLOOR! NO LINES!".
You better believe it was a SPRINT across the parking lot!!! lol...I booked it up those stairs, went potty and was in line with 1min to go before the gun went off! ha ha...THANK YOU GOD!
The gun goes off and before I know it my watch says 7:00 pace but I felt like I was running a 9:00 pace...I MADE myself slow down, and watched a bunch of women pass me.
"you'll get them later Nicole, play this race smart, you've got 13 miles to go".
I did my first mile at 7:30 but it felt perfect......I started to pick it up from there:) Mile 2 was a 7:02 but I worried a bit and slowed down. I wanted to execute this perfectly...I wanted to get progressively faster.
by mile 3 I was starting to pass people.... even though I dropped down and ran the 3rd mile to a 7:14.
AT mile 4 we started the first Long 1 mile climb. The crowd had thinned out a bit.....I talk to myself in my head A LOT when I race.
"Nicole, you've run hills MUCH MUCH steeper than this at a 6:40 pace. Now is the time to start working. Pass those women". so....off I went...steady pace..I passed 2 women and a lot of men:)
at the top of the hill (mile 5 I think) I see my coach waiting for me:) off we go...."just you and me now " he says..... "you're 10th female in line right now"
we passed some more men (gotta love that) and I got fed with great encouraging words like "you look great, you look strong, you're born to do this Nicole, lets go!":):) it's so great having a coach or a friend to encourage you while you run.
I have to admit I didn't quite need it yet though. I was feeling amazing! I felt so strong.I felt that RACE DAY MAGIC I had read about and I knew it was going to be a killer race for me!
Mile 5 was a 6:58. So far so good! I know my body and I know the longer I run the faster I get IF I run it right:)
Mile 6.5 - 8 is another long steady climb. This was when I started to notice I was feeling a bit tired and when I was going to have to actually start WORKING to stay under a 7min pace:)
aA we headed to the top of mile 8 there were 2 more women in front of me.
Joel says "okay you're going to surge okay?" (I'm thinking..What? surge? UP a hill? NOW? you're nuts!) but for some reason when you're tired and your coach is telling you to do something, you do it!
So I surged for 10 seconds and passed 2 more women:):) Every time I passed another female, I felt like it made me stronger.
now another break on the down hill......I was tired but for some reason I just kept doing what Joel told me to do. I wanted to do my best, I had the fire in my belly that I was missing at last weeks track meet:)
After this it was a few short hills..much steeper but short and quick. I tried to surge up those as well:)
We passed a few more girls and then t mile 9.5 we came up on the green goblin. I will just call her that b/c I got sick of looking at the back of her bright green shirt ! LOL....
Helen had now joined us and I had Helen AND Joel telling me what to do lol!
it's funny but I never said a single word the entire time Joel or Helen ran with me! lol...I never talk in races. too tired. too focussed. In my head I would respond but never aloud:) i'm such a weirdo! ha ha....
ANYWAY..this was the hardest part of the race....I passed the green goblin (also known as the sweet girl Aubrey, I spoke to AFTER the race) THREE diff times...and it was HARD to pass her....especially since every time I did, about 1-2min later she would sprint passed me again.
My coach would say "it's okay, it's okay". then 2 min later he would tell me to do it again!
I knew if I did it enough times ONE of us would get discouraged or not be able to keep up and I was PRAYING it would be her!
when I hit the mile 12 marker and had only 1 mile to go, I tried one last time! except this time it was inch my inch that I tried to pass her.
I somehow managed to push and by the time I had less than half a mile to go I felt that my legs were done....I was pumping my arms and i'm sure the look on my face was completely ridiculous and painful b/c that is how I felt lol.....I was still afraid the Green Goblin was going to catch me again but to no avail...I finished 20 seconds ahead of her!!!
I turned the corner and headed down the ramp into the Stadium!!! It was such an amazing feeling!!!!! Here I come...can you tell I'm D.O.N.E?? :):)
Joel told me, if you have NOTHING left at the end,then you executed the perfect race and I feel like I ran my PERFECT race. I paced myself those first 5miles perfectly to ensure I had what I needed to fight the last few miles.
It was an amazing race! 1:32:18 was my final time
. ...I never thought I would go from 1:46:21 to 1:32:18 in 7 months of training! Again, thank you JOEL!!!
As for Becky???? she WON. Oh yes...and she won by passing the first place girl...who had BEEN in first place the entire 13 miles, with only 5 meters to go!! The crowd in the stadium was going WILD!!!!
I was so proud of her I cried! she is a rockstar!!
Here she is passing the girl for the WIN in 1:24:19
