Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Bearathon 2013

On Saturday March 23rd I, Tamara AWESOMESAUCE Lehmann, completed my third half-marathon.

I WIN! And it was spectacular.
Spec-freaking-tacular.

If you’ve been reading along you know I’ve been a little worried about the course. Because there are hills. Like, 5 miles of hills. And these aren’t little “Oh isn’t she precious” hills. These are “Sweet baby Jesus WHY!” hills. According to my Garmin watch, Elevation Gain was 700 ft. I mean, whaaa?

Bearathon Hills GarminYou can see how my pace slowed down during the hills too according to my splits. I tried not to focus on how I was going to conquer the hills (I was already nervous enough) so about mile 4 you see my pace slowed down, it was because I was prepping to figure out miles 5-10. I went with power-walking up the hills (like seriously swinging the eff out of arms and the ol’ hips) and running down. It worked out well for me. I think doing all the stair workouts this semester with Moj really helped me. So, if you have hills in your future and no real hills to train on, I suggest stairs. They’ll kill you but totally worth it.

Bearathon SplitsMy plan going into this race was just to finish. I assumed because the course was so much harder than my other two that I’d probably finish somewhere around 3 hours and 15 minutes. So, I was pretty pumped when my official time was actually :

Official Race Time

I’m sure you remember all of my race times, (you guys are awesome friends!) but just in case you didn’t – this is the fastest I’ve ever ran 13.1 miles! Houston I finished in 3:00:27.

This means I totally PRed on the “Toughest Half in Texas” course.

Yep, you know a badass. Go ahead and let that soak in while I make an awkward race photo pose for you.

Im awkardThis particular race meant a lot to me because it felt as this was the start of my running journey when I completed the 5k portion of it last year. So, as I waited at the start line I was already tearing up before I even started running. I wanted to enjoy every moment of it. And I did. At every mile marker there was a water station, so to help Sar out with her Acts of Kindness, I clapped and cheered every one of those water stations volunteers. They didn’t have to be out there at 7am on a Saturday morning, and yet, there they were cheering us crazies on.

Speaking of Acts of Kindness, Sar was totally there cheering me on (as well as all the other runners!) around mile 11. It was definitely a huge boost since I was just coming off the hills. I also got to meet RP3 for a whole hot second. Like literally. I waved, he waved. We had a moment. Sorry Sar. It’s true.

At one point, someone chalked hopscotch out, I totally hop scotched my way into mile 9 I think. I also stopped at mile 10 I believe to let everyone know I was currently listening to Baby Got Back. I got big cheers on that one.

As I crossed the finish line, I started tearing up again and when I grabbed my medal/finisher shirt and free slice of pizza – I just sat down and soaked it in. I had finished. I had done something I never thought was possible – and I had enjoyed it.Free Pizza Alfred was out of town, Lillie was with her godparents and basically, I had no one at the finish line. But I didn’t care. I had done it and no one could take that away from me. I cried sporadically on the way home. And then when I walked in the house, I decided I wanted to record how I was feeling because I knew that the longer I waited the less emotional I would be. This feeling was something I wanted to remember.

Heads up, it’s a lot of rambling because I didn’t really give myself time to plan out what I was going to say.

Until we run again!

14 comments:

Sar said...

1) I LOVE that you and RP3 had a moment. He felt it too.
2) You're AMAZING! I love that you were cheering on the people who were there to cheer you!
3) You're an inspiration, Tam. Really. I went running today and it was just 2.5 miles, but everytime I walked, I thought of you running 13.1 and picked my butt up again.

So proud of you.

meg @ you're meaghan me crazy! said...

move over Alfred. my girl crush just got bigger.

Jodi said...

Congrats on your PR! That is amazing. Hills suck. You should be so proud of yourself. I think it is amazing that you are sticking w/ running. Go you!! :)

Holly said...

Girl. This is BY FAR my favorite vlog ever. Your emotion and excitement is so addicting!! And I'm glad I'm not the only one who cries after a race...I always thought I was nuts because I would tear up at the finish line, whatever race I was running, and I'd try to suck it up because I was usually by myself and had no one to hug. But you know what? At my first half in May, I'm crying and I don't give a damn who sees me!! And you've inspired me to take a video of myself when I'm done because I just want to capture that feeling, even if I'm the only one to ever see it.

You are an effing rockstar, and I am SO HAPPY that I am following your blog now!! Congrats on such an AWESOME race!!

Breenah said...

You are so freaking awesome :D WOO HOO!!!

Julann said...

You are some bit of awesome!!! What a great job and I LOVE your vlog! What a great idea!

Genna said...

I just wanna hug you. Smell or no smell. I just feel straight up proud of you. One of these days I'm going to meet you and hug you in celebration of this. It could be four years down the road but that hug will mean it! So glad you enjoyed yourself and shared all those raw emotions with us. Love you Tam!

Kate said...

This video made me almost cry, and I don't cry!

Also, my nose runs uncontrollably sometimes when I go for a run. I'm glad I'm no the only one.
This is my favorite vlog (I first time flog. Awesome.) in the history of blogs.

And I'm so SO proud of you. Sosososo proud. We WILL run a half together at some point. It's going to happen.

Sara said...

Girl, you had me in tears! You are such an inspiration, and you are so amazing! Seriously, the thought of running 1 mile freaks me out, but your words and the way you describe everything make me believe that someday I can run that mile with no problem, then eventually a 5k, then I can join the badass Tamzilla club and run a half! You should be so proud of yourself and how far you've come. See--you did it! You totally made the Bearathon your bitch!! Such an amazing accomplishment!

Amy said...

=)
::wild clapping!!::
Congratulations! Seriously this is awesome.
You are such an inspiration!

Anonymous said...

WOOOOOOO! That's so huge! Your video is so amazing and sweet and I smiled the whole time watching. Congrats!

meg @ you're meaghan me crazy! said...

I fixed my no reply!
re-read this post. seriously amazing.

Amanda Arr said...

Congrats!

I dub that time after a hard workout (usually running workouts for me) when you can't think straight because of all the endorphins as "runner brain."

:)

Amanda said...

Oh girl, I am so so so proud of you! I love that you have come this far in your journey and you have completed this race that sort of started it all! and you PRed!!!! I'm just so inspired by you. I loved watching that video and seeing your tears and all of the emotion that went into this race..it just feels right! I can't wait to see what's next for you :)