Eugene Half Marathon - Part 1 - The hours leading up to my best race ever...

Seriously - best race ever you guys! Ok...let's back up a bit. Since I'm not training for a half marathon, but instead for my 1/2 IM in June, this Sunday had a 13 mile training run on the schedule...so I signed up for the Eugene Half. No taper - just business as usual - so that meant a 5 mile run on Friday, a metric century ride on Saturday and the 13.1 mile run on Sunday.

Saturday's ride was originally supposed to be a 70 miler but Coach had a heart and dropped it down a bit for us. I came up a mile short on the 62 miles as well. The cue sheet actually said this at the bottom:
61.1 Arrive back at start point
62.0 ride around in circles until you hit 62.00!!!!

My butt actually said "Whatever! I'm getting off this bike right now!"

I threw my bike in the truck, zoomed home, stretched and even got in an ice bath before cleaning up and heading down to Eugene for the OBC (Oregon Blogger Connection) meet-up. It was just us girls on the road trip so I dropped Mai off at Mom and Dad's and headed over to Mazzi's to meet up with these running fools...

...who were lots of fun! Kim

and Laurie did a great job on organizing the dinner and both KILLED it in the race on Sunday!

I got to hug my favorite Oregon "Boston Runner", Small Town Runner ....twice :-) ...and feel up her Boston Jacket...

I felt a little more calm than I probably should have been before my very first 1/2 marathon. As the others chugged water, I relaxed with wine. I even had to ask what time the race started, as I had no clue. I was not impressed when I heard it was at 7am. Looked like I would have two days in a row of being up at 4:45 (ugh).
Little Fruit Fly's Baker Biker Boy cheered me up...

Source

 with some homemade vegan cupcakes...
and then we all headed out to our separate sleeping quarters to, I'm sure, toss and turn in blogger unison.

Mai demanded to sleep with me. I had one condition: Don't touch me! She couldn't help herself. And what was I to do when she spooned me and I look over to see her little sweet hand lying on my shoulder, but to leave it there and try to fall asleep. About 7 minutes before my alarm was to go off, Dad came in to wake us up and found us both lying there already awake. I woke at 3:45 and never fell back asleep. Maybe some nerves crept in after all?

I scooted off to Valley River Inn to catch a shuttle to the race, sipped a 5 Hour Energy while talking with a nice gentleman on the bus and headed to bag check -in.

Time to get the kids up for school, so there will have to be a Part 2 of this race report. I will leave you with this setting, though....34 degrees at wake up time and not a cloud in the sky. Weather conditions WERE PERFECT...

Here's a few more OBC pictures...that I had to borrow from other bloggers...'cause I didn't even take a camera with me (oops!)

...To Be Continued...