A Hilton Head Half Best and Dangerous Thoughts...

Hi. 

I'm Kiwi.

I'm famous around here for not being Kasha.

Everything is better when I tell it.

So I will tell you Hilton Head Half!

(Besides. Kasha is asleep. She sleeps a lot in between races right now.)

Saturday was Hilton Head Half Marathon.

Hilton Head is an island about an hour away from Savannah. Kasha has only run one other race there. A 5k over the 4th of July 2 years ago. This weekend we went back there for race 2 in Month of Many Mini Marathons! Friday, Kasha was a spastic. She wasn't acting it, not verbing it. She WAS it. She nouned it. Spastic Kasha had to film some articles for the Savannah Morning News on fitness routines. A newspaper. Take some pretty pictures and answer questions, right? No. They also have a whole online section that is taped and played back. So she had to memorize a bunch of stuff. This was all on Taper Day. She's already a spastic on Taper Day. She got through the taping with minimal crazy (first article will be out soon, we'll link it), and went to bed super early. 

4:30 am. Rise and Shine! Instead of driving 50 miles each way 2 days, Kasha opted to get up early and claim her packet before the race. Not all races allow this. Hilton Head is special like that. About 3 miles from the race, she stopped for coffee. And hot chocolate. Which is a lot of caffeine and not food in her tummy, but that's what she did.

She found the race site, got her packet, and went back to the car. An hour later it was time to go. But it was cold! I didn't wanna run. I wanted to stay in the blankets. So I whined and whined and Kasha decided she'd rather run alone than with Whiney Fone for 13 miles, so she let me stay. Remember... squeaky wheels get to sleep in the warm blankets! Or something like that. 

Kasha headed to the start line. 

Here we go!

She always does well when she starts near the front, so she did that. From the start line they headed 2 miles out and back with lots of dead animal smells and lots of sun. She wore sunglasses. Back across the start line, and hitting under 10 minute miles! Yeah! Better than last week already!

When it is cold, she doesn't drink as much water, plus; remember she had a fully caffeinated tummy. This meant she didn't need water stations. She just kept going. The 5k-ers began to turn back, then the 10k-ers. The halvers were on their own! At mile 4.5 Kasha looked up. And kept looking up! That's a big bridge, she thought. 

....genius didn't know she signed up for the Hilton Head Half Marathon BRIDGE Run.

aaahahahahahaahhaha!!!!

But Kasha was happy. She walked up the bridge eating gu as the first half marathoner headed back over. Then she got to the downhill. A lot of runners hate downhill running because it forces their muscles to work differently. But Kasha has always been able to change her hill stride/gait completely for a controlled, but scary fast downhill run. She was born in a swamp in Georgia, so she should be able to run in humidity, but we have no good reason for why she can run hills. It doesn't add up.

So she flew down the hill and off into the park. Miles 5, 6, 7 were all under ten minutes and she got back to the bridge. Same plan- gu up, fly down. This time she concentrated so hard on her downhill flying that it carried her a good ways after the hill/bridge ended. 

Mile 10 showed 1:43 by her watch. The old record was a 2:14:17, and to beat that she couldn't slow down at all. So she didn't. Whenever she felt tired, she ran harder. Back into the woods where she could hear the finish line music and across a wooden boardwalk. Run, run, run. See the finish line! FFFFFLLLLYYYYYY!!!!

Pass the married couple.

Pass the old man.

Finish line!!!

2:13:04!

A minute and 13 seconds off the old record! 

Go Kasha!!!

As she crossed the finish line, a guy was waiting for her. She took out an ear bud and tried to catch her breath. 

"I watched you run down the bridge." He said.

"That was incredible." He said.

Kasha gasped a thank you and was excited her killer bridge flying was not all inside her head. 

Then she found water and came to get me to take a picture!

How cute is that for a new PR?

She almost looks nice. And normal. 

...I should check my camera settings...

So then we got in the car.

But Saturday was not over! 

Next we went to Bluffton, just down the road, where Low Country Ultras was hosting Delirium. LCU also hosted Kasha's 50k Ultra in January. So she went over to help out however she could.

We changed clothes in the car, and spent the next 4 hours checking off runners as they completed trail/path/road loops of 1.7 miles to compete for 6, 12, or 24 hours. Kasha's friend Gary was there, and he did 50 miles in under 24 hours. Wow! Gary's son, age 9, did almost 19! Oh, in only 6 hours. Knowing that makes Kasha very intolerant when grown ups whine about running for 20 minutes on a indoor treadmill. 

Dan, who dreamed and built the Ledesma Ultra, also ran the 24 hour race, logging almost 40 miles. Wow again! And it left Kasha wondering if maybe she could do that some day. Dan and Gary both have that "You can SO do this" mindset and she knows they would only stoke the crazy fire. But we will worry about that later.

Helping out was lots of fun. She got to talk to other runners, from 5k-ers to other ultra crazies and triatholoonies. (I made that up. But I think it is the best word ever and it will go in my Kiwi Dictionary very soon!) She learned to spot which runners were coming when, who wore what, and who ran together. It was fun!

THEN we went home. 

Back to teaching Kettlebell Hell classes.

Back to training clients.

Back to dreaming about the next race.

Back to getting other people's kids off the bus.

Back to Home Base. 

And it was good. :)

This weekend, we're gonna go to Daytona Beach for the Half Marathon, and we're both so very really super excited. Maybe that's why she's sleeping. She passed out from excitement. Yeah. That's probably it. 

LOVE KIWI