Posts tagged race report

Better late than never, right?  3 weeks ago on St. Patrick’s Day, I ran the Rock ‘n’ Roll DC half marathon.  This was my first race since I ran the National Marathon last year. 

Last summer while training for the New York City Marathon, I started to feel pain in my right hip during a training run.  The pain became so intense that I had to stop running and walk back to my car.  After seeing an orthopedist and having an MRI done, it was determined that I a labral tear in my hip.  I was referred to hip specialist, Dr. Andrew Parker and made my appointment. 

While I waited for my appointment, although I couldn’t run without excruciating pain, I still went to the track workouts for my training group to help out my coach, Taneen.  Through this I found out that one of my running friends had had this same injury and also saw Dr. Parker.  He raved about the doc’s bedside manner and about the work that he did for him.  He was right, Dr. Parker was by far the nicest doctor I have been to and after describing my pain and my running lifestyle, he recommended surgery.  The surgery to correct this tear was arthroscopic and would put me under for the hour long procedure.  I scheduled by surgery for October 26^th and in the meantime became a huge spinning fan.  I wanted to stay in shape and build up my leg muscles to hopefully help with recovery post-op.

The surgery ended up going really well, and I was walking right away afterwards.  I could start running again 5 weeks later and from that time on I built up my miles aiming for the half marathon as my goal to get back into racing and long distance training.

I went into the race not knowing what to expect as I had been having some pain in my left quad starting a few weeks prior.  I lined up at the start with my friend John and took off.  He was running quicker than I thought and I felt fine keeping up with the roughly 7:35 pace, however I was unsure how long I would last.  As the race went on I continued to feel ok until I hit about mile 9.  That is when my stomach decided it did not like me anymore and for the first time ever in a race I found myself looking for a bathroom.  Needless to say I found one at mile 10.5 and then felt dehydrated and stomach crampy for the following 2.6 miles, but managed to hold a 7:40 pace as I willed myself to the finish line.

Regardless of my stomach issues and the last 4 miles not being my best, I was thrilled with my time, 1:41:14, a new PR by 5 minutes!  I celebrated by heading to 4 Courts in Arlington with Dan and my good friend Colleen for a few post-race drinks and to celebrate my Irish heritage.

Now I am looking forward to continuing my training for my next race.