The Kill of the Hill

The Santa Barbara Wine Country Half Marathon was awesome! I realized that I love smaller races, especially when the scenery is incredible. This race has it all, including moo'ing cows, rolling hills, lavender fields, more hills and even more hills.

I got to my grandparents house Thursday and we had some wine, relaxed and caught up. Friday we went to the expo. I forgot my running hat so my granny goose bought me a new one. She's so nice. Grandpa Snook thought I should just wear one of the old trucker hats in his garage. Why buy a new hat when he has several perfectly fine hats already?

Granny wanted to "drive" the course so I would know what I was getting myself into. We drove the first half. I was freaked. The entire first half was uphill with rolling hills scattered throughout. Seriously. She said the 2nd half was worse. I decided NOT to see the second half, as I already had little doubting debbies in my head. Speaking of doubting debbies, my mom suggested that I just run the first half and stop. (My grandparents house is at the half-way point).

Snook was very concerned about all the "traffic" that this 2000 person race would cause. So after much deliberation, he selected a route to the drop off point. This was a 3 minute drive from their house. Considering that he doesn't drive over 15 miles per hour, it was amazing that I managed to arrive at the race 45 minutes before it started. That was way too early. I was ready to go. The race actually started a little late because the porta-potty lines were long. Uhm. Ok, whatever.

Once we were off, it was awesome. It was so quiet outside that the melodic sound of sneakers against pavement was all you could hear. I decided to keep my iPod off. I definitely felt I was struggling in the first half. It seemed as if I was getting passed up by everyone - short, tall, fat, thin, old, young. Looking back, this was just in my head. My first half time was only 54:53.

After passing my grandparents house and getting a big energy boost from TEAM POM (pictured above), I started to get into my grove. There was a nice lady running beside me who said, "I think we're done with the hills." I said, "I hate to tell you this, but the biggest hill is right in front of us." As we turned the corner, you see it: Corkscrew Hill. I looked at my new friend (forgot her name) and said "We can do this. It will be fun." It was hard. Really hard. But I was right, it was fun for sure.

Shortly after, I heard someone say "Mile 11." I looked at my watch (didn't bring Big G) and it said 1:50. I was like, "holy crap, I might have a chance of matching my time from my last half." This is exactly what happened at my last half too. So I booked it. BUT... another hill right at the end. I was not expecting to be under 2:10 for this race.

I reached the finish line and got stuck in this hellacious line for water/fruit/crappy food (cookies, etc). I totally forgot to stop my watch. Who does this? So lame. I wasn't sure what my time was. I had to get online today to find out.

AND...

IT WAS...

2:04:28

YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. My legs were jello right after. I felt a little sick to my stomach, so I actually didn't drink any wine. (Until the evening, of course). My quads and calves are still killing me, but a good pain, not a bad one.

Favorite MOM-ISM of the weekend: Men - stop reading here.
Me: I started my period.
Mom: It's probably from all that running.
Me: Yeah, it probably is.