Cheryl Leaves Her Heart In The Ozarks.... (Half-Marathon!)

The race is finished and Cheryl won.   Kind of.  Ok, maybe not "Won" won....  But did pretty good for being old and female.  And despite her best attempts to convince you otherwise,  She DID manage to pull off a better than average Half Marathon today.... But the Devil is in the details.  So let us begin the long and boring process of "Nuance." 

I have been racking my brain on how to begin this account.   There are so many ways I could take it, the least of which is simply bombarding you, dear reader, with endless pictures.   Pictures of a runner running.   Yes, Yes,  She is cute when she runs. But who seriously wants to wade through 700 pictures?  ( Other than me, or her!)  So I will try to focus on the "non-running" things that I find interesting.  And perhaps add some chuckles along the way. 

It was cold, windy, and hilly.   VERY hilly, from all accounts.   Cheryl is not her best on Hill.   Both on the upside and the downside.     Despite this,  she was able to come in under 1:40 (1:39:49) with a average pace of 7:38 minutes per mile.  Typical of a fairly good training day.   She has certainly managed to shave off some time from her normal runs.

She places 23 out of 93  half marathoners.   Now here is an interesting note:   IF you remove the CROSS COUNTRY TEAM. ( Runners under the age of 18)   She would have been 7th overall.   There were only 6 men over the age of 30 that were faster than her.   And there was only ONE of those men was older than her. 

And now even more nuance:    Cheryl finished with only two other women in front of her.   ( I was counting at all spectator points.)    But when we got to the result table,   the chart had her in 4th place overall female.   I figured one of the women must have slipped by or was dressed "like a man." so I did not see her.   The other two women ahead of Cheryl were ages 15 and 18. ( different age group!)  But the "female" in front of Cheryl not only was the same age, but also pulled off a 6 minute per mile pace!   WOW!  ( fr those not in the know,  That is borderline Olympian Grade running.)

Finding the Award results.

But on our way home...  The results changed.   There might have been a possible mix up in the genders.  Meaning: someone with a female sounding  name or a typo on the application got in the female category and was not supposed to be there. 

Adding the age group award to her medal.

( Think of a guy named: "Chris."  Is Chris a male or Female?) Either way,   they corrected the results AFTER we were several hours into our trip back home.  

First place Female Age group.

IN the end, it does not matter.   Cheryl WON her Age group award ( 1st place) and there was no award for third place overall female,  so the hiccup is purely cosmetic.    Plus!  I was counting the women!  ( It makes me look bad when I have a different count from the computer.)   I always count the women ahead of Cheryl and tell her how many she has to beat if she wants to win us that vacation in Vegas. ( or $100 bucks!)   She won her age group,  ran a good race time, used her mid-race fueling effectively, and managed to deal with the hills, chills, and wind mills along the way.  ( There were no windmills, but I thought it sounded better if it rhymed.) 

The Marathon will test the Crazy!

Of course, Cheryl does not see it that way.   How petty!   She thinks that this amounts to little more than a training run.  She thinks that all that mid race fueling and caffeine matters little in the end.    She thinks that Jiffy peanut butter is better because it is creamy and not crunchy.    But she is wrong on all counts!   First,  Half marathons are not Marathons.   Marathons begin breaking you down AFTER mile 15 ( or so...)

A more useful sign to hold. If it were true...

And THAT is when the mid-race fueling might come in handy.   Second:  As far as training runs go,  any training run under an 8 minute per mile pace is HEROIC!  (Visualize a cape and back glow here) Pulling off 13.1 Miles with an average pace... and Hills and Wind and virtually alone is amazing!  

Running the race all alone!  No pacers.

That reminds me.  Being a small race, there were few people to pace off of.   Meaning:  Cheryl ran the race with a HUGE gap between her and the people ahead of her.  She nearly lost her place on the course a couple times with no one to follow.   She was left with only her own mental pace to follow.  A tough thing to do, if you have no competition to gauge off of. 

Other than that, the after action report was fairly typical.   We posed for some pics, ate some home made potato soup with ham sliders, and recounted our experiences to each other.  The mess up over the first place female finisher will remain a mystery, but Cheryl got her age group award and that is better than the huge award they were offering the overall winners.  

Next up!  FULL marathon!

Other things to note:   This was a good practice run for the Little Rock Marathon coming up soon.   We discovered that our toiletry bag requires new toothbrushes, eye conditioner, aspirin, and shavers.  And Finally,  Ruby Subie made the trip like a Champ!  Marking her first race event trip in a (Hopefully) long career as the new Race car.  

This post is becoming longer than I had hoped, so I should cut it off now and see if I can get these pics to download.   It is currently 8 pm as I write this and there are many other things to say, but perhaps I will save them for another post. ( Tomorrow, perhaps...) In the mean time,   Safe at home,  Time to drink the souvenir beer.  It is made with authentic, locally harvested,  Black Walnuts!  A smooth taste.  

Thanks for stopping in.