Boom Shakalaka

Oh hey. I'm here.  It's been quite the weekend.  In addition to the fact that I ran my second half marathon on Saturday night, it's also been quite the day off around here for Labor Day today.  I can guarantee that nothing that happened here today is of any interest to ANYONE, so I figured that tonight's post would be the perfect time to recap the big race for all those who are curious to hear the details.

So here you have it -- the boom, the shaka, and the laka.  Hahaha.

Interesting tidbits to note:

• The race started at 7 PM
• It was the inaugural run of the Boom Shakalaka in Indianapolis
• There were NOT a ton of people running this race
• The race was a looped course of a little over 3 1/4 miles -- so we ran 4 laps
• And according to my Garmin the race was actually 13.29 miles, not 13.1

Oh and my race shirt will need some censoring before I'll be wearing it out in public.  Hahahahaha.  Ethan got quite the kick out of it when he saw it the next morning.

Some of the crowd who came to watch.  And maybe some of them were there to run, too.

When signing up for the race, I was kind of intrigued/excited about the idea of the race not starting until 7 at night.  I'm not really a morning person, so the thought of being able to sleep in and get a full night's rest before the race was really quite appealing.  Going in to the big day, my biggest concern was the weather.  It was like deja vu of my last half marathon!  And thankfully, just like last time around, my worries were for nothing.  There were high temperatures, high humidity, and high chances for thunderstorms in the forecast, but in the end it was actually kind of PERFECT.  While still being a little warm, it was cloudy enough and breezy enough that it really didn't matter.  It really made for quite a lovely summer evening run.

Rachel and I had LOTS of time to spend together as it took a couple of hours to drive there, more than a couple of hours to run, and another couple of hours to drive back home.  Having a good running buddy makes all the difference in the world!

As a second-timer running this half, I was surprised by a few different things.  The thing I was most surprised about was to see how simultaneously nonchalant I was about covering the distance while still having butterflies in my stomach.  Of course, the whole waiting around all day for the race to start may have contributed to and prolonged the nervousness feeling, but still.  It was kind of weird. 

Once the race finally started, though, it was great.  Like I said, the weather was amazing.  It was so nice and breezy, and the scenery around the race course loop was really beautiful in parts as we wound through different side streets and parts of the campus there.  In a lot of ways, it felt like just another long run but even better.

Going in with zero expectations/goals was a good thing, and it was really fun to just run with Rachel and be a part of the race.  In the end, I beat my time by a couple of minutes from last time around and finished in one piece -- so, overall it was another great and awesome experience to run a half marathon! 

So those were the highlights.  And now for the lowlights.  :(  Having a race at the end of the day ended up being more taxing than I was expecting.  Our average pace ended up being a minute slower than on any of our long runs during this whole training experience, mostly because we ended up walking quite a bit.  About 5 miles in, my calves started to feel really tight and strained and stayed that way the remainder of the time, and then about 8 miles in, I felt a blister forming on one of my toes, which has NEVER happened EVER during any of my runs!  It was so weird.  By the time we finished it was pitch black and even though it wasn't THAT late -- 9:32 PM -- we were obviously wiped out from the running PLUS just plain getting tired for it being the end of another day.  And THEN we still had to drive home!

After collecting our medals and grabbing a banana to eat, we decided it would be better to head out sooner rather than later, so we hit the road.  After driving for about an hour, we stopped to get some food at a Subway inside a Walmart, and I have to say that the tuna sub on honey whole wheat with tomato and mustard that I got was pretty much the most delicious thing I've ever eaten in my life.  Hahahaha.  I remember feeling the same way after my last half marathon when I finally ate something when the race was done.  There's nothing like torching over 1300 calories in a 2 1/2 hour period to make food taste AMAZING. 

We got home SOOO late, but the worst part was that after showering and getting in bed, I could NOT fall asleep forever.  And then I still had to get up for church in the morning!  I made it, though, and even though I felt like a complete zombie for the whole day, I was happy and surprised to see that I didn't feel sore at all from running the race.  Two days later, and the only residual issues I'm having are some twinges in my hip flexors, but still, not a lot of muscle soreness!  I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing -- good because it must mean that I was prepared and ready for the run or bad because I should have been pushing it harder and faster for the big race.  Oh well!  I'm not done just yet.  Call me crazy {or HALF crazy} because I think I'm going to run another one at the end of September with Scott's sister in their hometown.  Hahahaha. 

All in all, I'm glad I ran the Boom Shakalaka, but I have to say that I don't know if  I would do another night race of this distance again.  Definitely not one that was so far away!   And that is that.  :)

I've earned a new sticker for the "new" car.  It was one year ago this weekend that the mountaineer went kaput and we got ourselves the Odyssey!

Showing the kids my medal the next day!  The kids were definitely less interested in hearing about the race this time around.

Happy Labor Day everyone!