We spent the past weekend in Istanbul for the Golden Horn half marathon and had a fantastic time! We (finally) stayed in a hotel we were happy with, found an awesome Cuban bar and danced salsa and merengue till 2:00 am, and had an interesting cultural experience at the modern art museum. The tulips were in full bloom and the weather was perfect. Part of the great experience was the race. Our last race in Istanbul was pretty miserable. I felt good and had a good race that day, but all the odds were certainly stacked against me! You can read about that day here. On Sunday, all was working for me, and again, I had a great race.
There were probably only about 600 runners, so the start was not so crowded and we were only a minute back from the start line. The race finished and ended in the same spot, so there was no throwing drop bags in buses and shoving a thousand people at the end to get your bag from the one volunteer on the bus. Drop bags were arranged around a conference center. Perfect. The center had bathrooms and plenty of places to sit and chill out after the run. It was a great start and end location.
The course was beautiful! I thought it would get monotonous on the water, but it was quite scenic and you could look at the boats on the Bosphorous and the fisherman. Plus, it was sunny, there was a light, cold breeze, and the flowers were going off. You couldn't ask for nicer running weather.
Being in shape, certainly, but having not followed any sort of training regimine, I simply wanted to break 2 hours. I kept the music pumping to keep me going and it really helped. I found myself focusing on the song rather than the negative thoughts that creep in when your legs are tired and you're running by yourself. I ended up running a 1:55:06 and was 21 out of 68 women. I was 8th in my age group, but the age group was 15-35--hahahahah. That's my age group?! In Boulder, an age group would only encompass 5 years. But I am in the land where women DO NOT run. There's a lot of princess mentality. My 1/2 marathon PR was in Boulder in 2006, and was a 1:51:something. I'm not far off of that and because so few women run, I will, if possible, actually train well next year. Who knows? Perhaps I could actually place in a race here. It won't happen in Colorado, but Turkey?? It's possible! I felt great after the race. Actually, I felt like I should have been running a lot harder, but I didn't know if I was conditioned enough to sustain a faster pace for that long. But now I know. I learn something about myself every time I'm out there.
People who participated were extremely supportive. I got a lot of "bravos" at the end and people who ran around me and people I passed congratulated me. That was really nice, I thought. It was like we were a little community, all working together to the same goal.
These pictures are from Tim's phone. If I get better ones, I'll post them later. This is us with Dale, who works with us. He wanted it to be 50 degrees and drizzling. I'm sorry you didn't get your wish, Dale, but not too sorry because it was the weather I wanted.
Hammin' it up a bit at the start line. A little comedy goes a long way. I'm holding my headphones in case you're wondering.
I carried a mix of Powerade and water because the aid stations only have water. Bottles of water, in fact. But at least this time there were in half-size bottles and the volunteers turned the tops for us. I also spaced a pack of Clif Shot Blocks across the race and that worked fine for me. I carried an extra pack but didn't end up needed it because we had an actual breakfast. Most importanly, during and after, and even now: no knee pain. Consider me 100% recovered.
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