The Unlikely Competitor: The Scottsdale Half Marathon- A Tale Of Bad Life Choices

I know that I claimed that I was going to be better about blogging, but A) work, riding and life have been super crazy and B) I'm a liar. The WDW Marathon is looming on the horizon like horrible monster with razor sharp teeth and blood red eyes, so there's plenty to write about, I've just been so swamped that I just...haven't.

I've actually been doing a fair amount of consistent running, but I haven't been great about doing long runs. I planned to do the Hot Chocolate Race ~~for the hoodie~~ to get in a 15K run, but I waited until the very last minute to sign up and it sold out. I also planned to do the Scottsdale Half Marathon the next weekend, but I wasn't excited about it and they had race day registration, so again, I waited until the last minute.

This is how my weekend went down and it includes just about every scenario you should avoid before running a half marathon. I am the running equivalent of a D.A.R.E. commercial. Don't drink and run, kids.

If you happen to be stopping by my blog for the first time ever, I will preface this story by telling you that I am an avid rider (as in horses, not bicycles. Ew.) and my barn mates take weekend brunch very seriously. And by "seriously", I mean that we discovered a new restaurant that serves bottomless mimosas from 10am until 2pm for 12 freaking dollars. And it's not even like you have to reorder! They wander around and just constantly refill your glass, so you never really know how much you've consumed until you realize it's now dinner time and you then order yourself dinner.

So last Saturday, I still hadn't committed to the race on Sunday morning by the time we decided to go to brunch, which could probably be considered lunch since it was 1pm with only one hour left of bottomless mimosas.

Don't mind my riding clothes and really dirty nails from being at the barn.

I figured that I couldn't get into too much trouble because we only had an hour. Well, they kept serving us until around 3:00 and then we waited a couple of hours to leave.

I even made sure that I ordered water to counter the mimosas, but I didn't even finish one glass.

This is the conversation at the barn that led to this debacle:

Kelly: we still have an hour left for bottomless mimosas!

Me: okay, but I can't drink too much. I might sign up for a race.

Katie: running is dumb.

Me: yeah, it is. Let's have mimosas.

At some point in the middle of all of this, I decide to register for the half from my phone while completely buzzed. Champagne buzzes don't last too long, but being the professional champagne drinkers that we are, we are definitely capable of putting away more than the average person. So even though we sobered up pretty quickly, it certainly doesn't help your energy or hydration levels when you're planning on running 13 miles in the morning.

Basically, I went home and went straight to bed.

At 5:30pm.

Like a boss.

Then I remembered that my running clothes were dirty, so at least I managed to get a load into the washer and got my socks and underwear out for the morning. Then I went back to bed.

I slept until midnight and woke up with a killer headache. Now I'm kicking myself because I know I'm going to feel terrible in the morning. I get up and chug two glasses of water and pull my running clothes out of the washer to hang up to dry. It then occurs to me that I don't know where my visor is and I'm sure my iPod needs to be charged. And where the hell is my running belt?!

So I was awake from midnight until 4:30am, watching Happy Endings on Hulu, and my alarm was going to go off at 5:45. The race started at 7:30. Pretty sure this is part of Meb's routine, too.

I finally fall back to sleep for about an hour, my alarm went off, and I got ready to race. My headache was much improved but still present and I felt very tired. I think this is why I signed up from my phone while tipsy at the bar. I knew there was no way I'd get up and go register before the actual race, but if I had already spent $85 less than 24 hours prior, there was no way I was wasting that money.

As I was leaving, I realized that I had no fuel of any kind. I stopped at the Circle K and loaded up on Clif Bars, coffee, water and giant Sweet Tarts (Sweet Tarts actually made good fuel!). I was the only one in the store and the lone employee watched me like I was a tweeker on some all night binge buying up all the snacks in sight.

Possible fuel choice for the WDW Marathon.

So off I went. I made it to the Scottsdale Civic Center at 7:10, picked up my bib and shirt, then checked the shirt and remainder of my snacks in the gear bag provided, and made it to the start by the skin of my teeth.

I won't bore you with a mile by mile recap, since most of my race was not monumental. Spoiler alert: I survived my first hung over half marathon and it wasn't as horrible as I imagined it would be.

This race used to be the Fiesta Bowl Half but changed this year to the Scottsdale Half.

It's a fairly small race, but well run. They only had aid stations every 2 to 2.5 miles, which is way less than I'm used to since I usually run really large races, but I can't complain too much about that since it was a small race.

The course was through a pretty nice part of town, which was enjoyable.

The crowd support was pretty much nonexistent, which made it hard to distract myself from the fact that I was trudging along for 13 miles, sweating out champagne though my pores.

I actually didn't do too badly considering my race preparation, or lack thereof. Like I said earlier, I've been running consistently, but I think I survived this race as well as I did because I've dropped about twenty pounds since this summer, which has helped my stamina immensely (but sadly, has not really made me faster). I'll write more about that in another post.

I'm no speed demon, that's for sure, but I still squeaked across the finish line in just under 3 hours. I hit a big wall at about mile 10, but that wasn't a shocker, considering. I walked all of miles 12 and 13. My legs were toast.

Berry champagne is pretty delicious.

But then there were free mimosas at the finish line, so my pain floated away and dissolved into a cloud of happiness. And they were not skimpy on the champagne, either. That drink is like 7/8 berry champagne, which is where the color of this drink comes from, and 1/8 orange juice. Frankly, this is the proper mimosa ratio, in my professional opinion. None of that 'splash of champagne in the O.J.' bullsh*t for this girl.

The irony of all of this is that when I ran the Tink Half in May, I totally did everything right. I ate very carefully the day before the race, I drank tons of water, did a lot of relaxing, didn't use effing Sweet Tarts for fuel, and you know what? I was still sick as a dog for half an hour post race in the porta potty, just like every half marathon (or longer) that I run.

This time, my stomach totally felt great and my headache disappeared somewhere around mile 10 and unicorns appeared in the sky, etc. Maybe I've stumbled upon my new pre-race routine, because once I was in that mimosa garden, I felt like a million bucks. And you're welcome, by the way, for always doing things in the most stupid way possible so that you don't have to. That's public service, right there.