yep. I ate $h!t during the first mile. My first race fall. I did fall once before on a trail, but it's a little bit more acceptable in that setting. So here's the story: I was in the third wave and about two minutes into the race I saw a woman eat it on the sidewalk. Just before I went down I was thinking, "That would seriously suck...I wonder how I would recover mentally from a fall early in a race..." and then I thought about the movie "Run, Fat Boy, Run," when he falls at the beginning of a marathon and hurts his knee... and then I fell. Fortunately, I'm volleyball-roll trained, so I was back on my feet before the first person could ask if I was OK. I decided to ignore the pain in my hands (they both hurt) by pulling my sleeves down over them for the next mile...but when it was time to ditch my sweatshirt, I finally looked and found my left hand was nasty bloody. I stopped at the mile 5 medic station, dug out a couple pieces of gravel, wiped it dry, took a picture of it, and put on a band-aid (that fell of before mile 6) and sort of got over it. But, it hurts even now--two days later. It was a deep gouge and it's probably infected a little....I don't know... should I dump some frozen peas on it like that British-chick did in Bridesmaids?
So, back to the race: I was surprised by the size of the mountains around Santa Barbara, by the number of oil rigs just off shore (did you know they drilled there?), and that it didn't rain on us during the race--it poured the entire night before, and about an hour after the race it started to rain again.
I hope to do this race again next year AND the Silverstrand.... my goal is to be in such good running shape next year, that I can do two halfers back-to-back. I guess we'll see...
The bike path around miles 4-7
The final mile
View above the finish line at SB City College
just saw your post...damn, that is a good recovery. I need to learn the volleyball roll! I've done a few face plants but not on the street thank god. time to move to the trails?
ReplyDeleteIt's now almost a week later as I type this: how's the hand? I too was struck by the oil rigs first time I visited SB. And how they made the beaches dirty - we went for a walk and had oil residue on the bottom of your feet.
ReplyDeleteGlad you otherwise had a good run.
Will: I think I am going to focus more on trails this year... I think I'll sign up for the King of the Hill Trail Running Series; although, I don't know how I feel about the final 22 mile race...
ReplyDeleteAnne: The hand is much better, but still healing...kinda gross.