kathee eat world

layover in vegas.. on my way up to the half marathon. seriously considering skipping the marathon and staying in vegas!

Another 13.1 down and I got to see parts of San Jose I have not seen before.

My time was terrible !!! I finished at 3:29, which I attribute to only training for 2 weeks. At my last half marathon I could run 4-5 miles without stopping and at this one I started walking between miles 1 and 2. I did not run much more except for short sprints whenever I heard a good song that I liked. Walking is probably the worst thing I could do — since my calves cramped up and I had to stretch at miles 6 and 11.

View of us heading back to downtown san jose (this is one of many many "walking breaks"

I am still glad I did it – I learned in this race about “salt packets” and OVER hydration (who knew!). If your pee is lemonade colored, you’re fine. But electrolytes man! ELECTROLYTES. They did not provide any energy drinks on this course which kinda sucked because I already had enough water. I tried taking the salt packet — but couldn’t remember if I was supposed to eat a whole packet !? Yuck! This whole concept is new to me!

There is also such a thing as a “sweat test” that you can do while training. Basically you weigh yourself before/after a workout and then you’ll know how much you need to take in during your workout to replenish.

Should I have trained for this ? Yes.

But I am glad I did it – it is a confidence booster for sure! I considered stopping at Starbucks or Peets along the way !!! But after I got up to mile 10 I was committed and punched it at the last .1 mile when I saw my cousin cheering for me! I had told everyone don’t expect me to finish – I’m just doing this for fun. Anyway – I’m sure if I can do it, anyone can do it!

I am already mapping out my next one — wanted to do the NY half but am worried about training for cold weather. May not be *ideal*.

Taking the day off work today to “recover”. I hope I can start running again in a few days. I plan to stick to 4-5 miles training

I’m totally out of shape, so it’s completely ridiculous that I JUST signed up for a half that is in two weeks.

But I think I can do it especially since the time limit is 4 hours. So the next 2 weeks will be focused on training. Then I’ll take a break for a few days after the half and keep training so maybe I can do one early next year (which one, I’m not sure yet but open to and taking suggestions).

I’m not really concerned with personal records.. I just want to dangle the carrot in front of myself, force myself to train and maybe make a trip out of the thing so a half marathon in a “destination” would be nice.