An Overdue Race Recap – The Falmouth Road Race 2014

The first day back to work after a three-day weekend is always rough. But luckily, evening practice tonight means that my morning involved sleeping in and a little yoga while watching the Today Show – not a bad way to start the week. It is going to be hot out there tonight though so we’ll see how that goes.

I am definitely far overdue on recapping the Falmouth Road Race for y’all. I promise never to wait 2 weeks again but with all the changes going on around here I hope you can forgive me! 😉

The Falmouth Road Race is one of my FAVORITE races mostly because it is a shorter race (7 miles) but has the atmosphere and number of runners closer to a half or full marathon! I also love that the course is point-to-point and winds along the coast of Cape Cod so you have amazing views the entire time you are running.

I first ran this race 5 years ago and I was so excited to go back this year but things didn’t really go as expected – this could get pretty lengthy if I wrote everything out so let’s do this recap is the form of stream of consciousness shall we??

The Falmouth Road Race from inside my head….

Pre-Race Day – Saturday 8/16

5:00 PM (at Picco) – Yum, this pizza is AH-MAZING such good fuel for tomorrow morning.

6:30 PM (picking up my bib number from a teammate) – Yikes! #70? That’s a low number! Are there 50 ladies in the elite women start or 100? 

6:35 PM – I must be imagining things I’m totally just in the normal start. I’m not fast enough for the elite women wave.

9:30 PM – Good night!

Race Day – Sunday 8/17

5:45 AM – Time to wake up! It’s race day!

6:00 AM – Grab breakfast, get in the car, let’s get this show on the road!

7:00 AM – This is awesome, no traffic at all.

7:15 AM – Ooops, spoke too soon. Good thing we’re only 2 miles away from the shuttle drop-off.

8:00 AM – Seriously?!? How did it just take us 45 minutes to drive 2 MILES? 

8:01 AM – Okay, get it together, stay calm, grab everything you need, kiss Henri goodbye, get in a shuttle line.

8:05 AM – This line isn’t moving at all, I should be warming up already!

8:10 AM – The lady in front of me saw my number and told me to go to the front of the line… should I do it? NO! I can’t break the rules, must. stay. in. my. line. 

8:15 AM – Oooo, that line is moving a LOT faster. Mad dash to the other line, feeling good about my decision.

8:20 AM – FINALLY get on a shuttle. I’ll still have an okay amount of time to warm-up… we can’t be that far away from the starting line.

8:29 AM – We’re stillllll driving to the start? Goodness! Well at least I didn’t try to warm-up to the starting line, I totally would have gotten lost!

8:35 AM – Sweet! We’re here. Stand up, stay calm, you’ve got this.

8:36 AM – Unloading, the volunteer at the bottom of the stairs is pointing everyone to the right but when she sees my bib she frantically tells me to go to the left.

8:37 AM – Start jogging to the left, see the starting line. Did that volunteer’s eyes just bug out when she saw my number?? hmmm, something might be up….

8:42 AM – Just stay focused, jog, get some drills in and you’ll be fine. Stay CALM!

8:45 AM – Perfect, a porta-john. Just what I needed.

8:46 AM – Um, all the ladies in the elite field have pink bib numbers. My bib number is pink. No one else has a pink number…..? Maybe I should ask someone about this.

8:47 AM – Hello sir (volunteer), my number is pink like theirs but I’m with the normal start at 9 right?

              – There are those bug eyes again! What is happening?? Okay, he’s talking so someone else. They’ll sort this out.

              – I do have to start at 8:50??? Yikes that’s like NOW! 

8:49 AM – Hop in the corral, run up to the pack of elite women, place myself in the BACK because we all know I’ll be slower than EVERYONE else here, listen to the National Anthem (is that Molly Huddle?? Tara Erdmann??).

8:50 AM – On your mark, get set, GO! Okay, guess it’s time to run. Run your race, nice and steady, don’t go out too fast – 6:20’s, 6:20’s!!!

8:55 AM – 5:45 first mile – not good. Back off – 6:20’s.

9:00 AM – I am alone, completely alone, that’s cool.

9:08 AM – Henri said he’d be at mile 3, where is he?? Would it be okay to stop when I see him?? I can’t finish this race, I wasn’t ready!

9:15 AM – Mile 4 – come and gone. Still no Henri…..

9:18 AM – There he is! Stop, hug, cry a little, complain about my ankle feeling tight… he asks if I want to stop. No, I can make it – only 2.5 miles to go… 

9:22 AM – Here come the elite men. Wow! They’re fast – they just ran 5 miles 10 minutes faster than I did – that’s 2 minutes per mile! Look at their form…. They’re amazing.

9:28 AM – Was that Chris Solinsky?? Love that guy! I think he’s going to run a marathon this fall…? Am I remembering that right? FOCUS! Keep running!!!

9:29 AM – ONE MILE TO GO!!!

9:33 AM – I do NOT remember this hill. How evil to put this so close to the finish!

9:35 AM – Done! Phew, that was rough!!!

BY THE NUMBERS

45:59 * 217th Overall * 42nd Female * 35th in Age Group

So even though my first race in a NB Boston uniform didn’t exactly go as I would have liked the Falmouth Road Race is always a great experience. I got the chance to chat with some of the elite runners after the race (Chris Solinsky & Tara Erdmann) and did my cool-down with one of my old high school teammates turned amazing marathoner! I hope to run this race again in the future and to be better prepared than I was this time around. 

No matter how much this race beats me up, it will always have my heart! 😀

Tell me about a bad race experience that you’ve had.

Did anyone else out there run Falmouth this year? How did you do??