BMW Marathon Journey cont. Part 4

Last week I left you with my coach wanted me to run a 10k which for some of you non-runners, is 6 miles.

I found a nice little race in WACO, Texas, which is only about 3 hours from where I live. Very doable. I do not like to really go very far to run a race. I know some runners go all over kingdom come to run a race. I just don’t like to do it.

Waco is a nice little town. They have been on the map nationally due to Baylor University sports and academics. Also, the tv show Fixer Upper with Joanna Gains and Chip Gains. What a cool couple.

Back to the race. My husband decided he would come with me. I feel bad sometimes to leave him out of my adventures because most of the time he doesn’t want to come with me. Lately, he has decided that he would drive me to my races. We left our little town in the late afternoon and arrived in Waco early evening, it was really a nice drive, however the fiasco it took to get to the hotel was just crazy. The gps had us going all over the place, take the next right, is 50 feet turn right and then so street names. GPS had us going down like an alley and coming in the back way to the hotel. What a total joke. Well, we got to the hotel and relaxed.

Get up the next morning, and the race actually didn’t start until around 9am. My morning wake up is like 4am. What to do, what to do. I had my yogurt to eat a few hours before hand. Get my drinks all ready to go. The weather was quite nice.

The football stadium, which is where the race was at, was awesome. I had only seen University of Texas and Texas A&M. This was kind of exciting actually been down on the field. I met the warm up leader and talked to her for a bit. I love meeting new people. I warmed up jogging around the football field, which is quite BIG. I did not realize how big it really is. No wonder they get winded. lol

Now, I have been having an issue where on mile 4 or 5 I have to use the restroom. Yes, of course I use the restroom before I leave the house all the time. It never fails I always have to go. My husband and I get to the stadium and there are all kinds of white tents all over the place. I had realized that we were right in the middle of football season and the tents were all kinds of vendor set ups. The e-mail stated come see us to pick up your race packet at the 3 white tents. Ok! My husband made the comment that if I poop my pants, it was my own fault because there were port-a-potties all over the place. I was in really good shape.

We get all warmed up and my focus was to not start off too fast. OK, so I thought I was going pretty slow and of course I did not want to be the last one out of the stadium. I was going along pretty well and my phone tells me my heartrate and my pace rate. I was going a pretty good pace. I told myself ok, slow down its ok. I found a lady who seemed to be running about my pace and so I stayed in sight of her.

This course took us all around the campus. Beautiful campus and a few little rolling sidewalks. We had to go up and over a bridge which did not look very bad but holy cow it was brutal. For the 5k racers, they only had to do the course once. Due to construction going on the 10k racers ended up doing the course twice. The event was a little disorganized however, it was the very first one this group had put on so all in all they did a nice job. They know what they need to work for the next race. I do hope they have it again in 2023, I would like to conquer a few things.

I was geting pretty winded coming around to the second time around. I was still in sight of the lady I was keeping up with. i had actually passed her. Well, low and behold I had to hit the porta-potties. Once I did this I the lady had passed me.

I am almost done with the race, I just have to run up and over this bridge and then go up this stadium. Yes, you read that right. I had to run up the football stadium on the ramps going all the way to the top. Then I had to make a left turn then a hard right and run up the stairs. Are you kidding me? Who does this? Apparently this group did. This was a challenge. I literally used the handrail to help me go up these stairs. I was exhausted.

I get to the top and guess who just finished just ahead of me. Yup, the lady that I had passed and been keeping up with the whole time. If I just not had to go pee, I would have beat her. Hey, the good thing is that I was not last. I took my time going back down the ramps and I was worried because I did not see anyone coming up the ramps until I got to the bottom and a few more racers were going up. I thought yes, I am not last.

Let the cramping begin. My husband was waiting in the truck and as soon as he saw me, he came to pick me up. As soon as I tried to get in the truck, I cramped up so bad and here he is “come on let’s go” I said “Wait”. Hurt so bad.

I finally was able to get in the truck and off we were to head back home the 3-hour drive. All I can say, is wow that was fun but wow that was crazy and what a great race leading up to the BMW Marathon come up.

I still have one more race to do before the BIG race. I am supposed to do a half marathon. That one you can read next time. Put your beanie and gloves on for this one. Burrrr is all I can say.