The reunion was a lot of fun (photos here) - good friends and a good time catching up, plus a "Philly buffet" including my faves - cheesesteak, soft pretzels, and Tastykakes! I tried everything but didn't eat too much because of the race the next morning. Got to sleep around midnight and then was up at 5 am to drive to New York.
I got a bit lost in New Jersey but only lost about 20 min on the way to the race, and so I arrived 40 min before the race, which was plenty of time. You don't need to warm up much before a 30K! I thoroughly enjoyed seeing my racewalking friends and saying hi before the race. I met Maria Michta, our 20K Olympian from this summer, and talked science with her (she's getting her Ph.D. in microbiology).
The race went surprisingly well. There are pictures here on Facebook - mostly of the men's 50K competitors and the 30K competitors who finished after me, but there are some shots of the awards too. Basically, I started out 95% sure I wouldn't finish, and about 12K into the race I was sure I wouldn't finish. I decided to get to 15K and quit. I quite literally had a "pain in the butt". But at 15K, it felt a bit better and so I kept going. It never really got bad again until I had less than 5K to go, and then I knew I would finish no matter what! It wasn't horrible, though - I wasn't limping like I was on the track a few weeks ago. I didn't push hard (for obvious reasons) and my time was a bit slow, but I FINISHED!!!!!!!! I was ecstatic to finish, and it was SO FUN to be out there racing with my friends. Yeah...time was really slow, at 3:14:03, but oddly enough I didn't care.
The funny thing is that my pain in the butt is getting better, despite the race. The day after the race I took a rest day because of the hurricane (impossible to exercise!) - rain, wind, etc. We got 75mph wind gusts - it was HOWLING out there and I was glad to be inside (my friend's parents took us in because we didn't want to have to pay for hotel for extra days; so we got to couch surf!). On Tuesday morning it was much better so I went for an easy 5K walk, and it only took about 31 min! My hamstrings were quite sore, and I have a sore toe (blisters) but otherwise it was great. On Wednesday, after almost 48 hr w/o power, my friend's mom took me to the gym, which had power! I got in an hour on the elliptical, lifted weights and did my glute exercises, and got a HOT shower :). Yay! Today we still did not have power. It was pretty cold in the house (probably 55F, 12C) but we felt lucky that we had no trees in the roof and no flooding.
I went for a walk this morning and walked a really fast 10K. Not sure how I did that - maybe the Garmin was off? I walked 58:31 and felt great. I went by my old house though, and there was a tree down and serious roof damage. It was a very large old tree and fell right into the master bath on the east side of the house. I took lots of pictures and talked with the son of the "new" owners (who most likely bought the house from my parents back in 1987, he thought). The son lives in my old room, which I thought was pretty funny. Anyway, he said this was the 3rd tree to fall on the house since his parents had bought it - one fell on the sun porch and damaged the whole front of the house, and one fell from the back yard and I'm guessing damaged the patio and room my brother used for a bedroom, as that has been removed from the house and replaced by just a flat patio. Here are the pictures I took.
I really enjoyed my walk - loved walking in the old neighborhood and seeing how it looks now - pretty similar, actually. I walked where my mom used to run back in the 1980s, and where I tried to run with her so long ago (and gave up because it was too hard!).
Anyway, I've got a plane to catch so must go!
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