Monster Dash: Race Report

Hi friends! This is my first time writing a race report BUT there will be many more races to come in the near future, so I suppose I better get used to writing these. This was my second half marathon and can I just say I LOVE this distance? 13.1 miles of awesome-ness. Around mile 9 I was thinking about how difficult it would be to run a full marathon. I give all you marathoners out there props, hopefully someday soon I can find enough guts to run one. It's gotta be done, I'm thinking Spring :). But, for now I'm just going to concentrate on training for the half distance cause that's what makes me happy!

Monster Dash was in Minneapolis Minnesota, about a three hour drive from my home in La Crosse. My Aunt lives close to the city so my mom, sis and I stayed over night and got to enjoy the company of my wonderful, hilarious family. This was also my cousins last weekend at home, now he's living it up at marine boot camp (notice sarcasm). He did decide to run the 5k with my sister so that was awesome. I'm slowly turning my family into a bunch of runner nuts :). My Auntie made amazing Spaghetti for the pre-race meal, which was amazing.

The alarm went off at 5:30 am and we were out the door by 6:00. My pre-race fuel was a combo of oatmeal & Granola and a Banana. (Coffee too, of course). My auntie, mom, sister, cousin, and I were packed into the car and were having difficulties finding parking. 6 am + too many females that are lost = quite a bit of tension. We figured it out though, thanks to a very nice guy we found during our excursion. We got there plenty early which meant no lines for the bathroom! Thank the lord!

The race: I ended up getting a personal best by 10 minutes which is great. But, I know I was capable of going faster. I ran a 1:50, but for the first 8 miles I was running at 8:00/mile pace and around 9 my whole lower body just cramped up. I ended up slowing down for the last 5 miles making my pace 8:29 for the entire race. I accepted the fact that It just wasn't my day around mile 9 and decided to just have fun. I'm surprised I still PRed by so much actually because I was not pushing the last 5 miles at all so it makes me really excited to race again and see what I can do! Here is my lovely finishing photo: (i'm in the blue).
What's really awesome about this race is that my sister (Kara K-B) ran her first race ever and liked it! We are hopefully going to do a half marathon this summer together which will be awesome. The rest of my fall is packed with races (as many as I can find), one winter half marathon, and then this spring and summer is going to be races almost every weekend! I've already made my training plan for November & December :). Alright. So I decided I don't like writing race reports because I feel like I have nothing to say. Doesn't help that I waited a week to write this. baha.. Enjoy the pictures. I'll update soooon.
-A