Not the Half Marathon I expected

Half marathon did not go as planned, some times you are put in certain places at an exact time because you were meant to be there. I kind of think that is what happened yesterday. I will recap but let me just start by saying that I saw a guy collapse at mile 11. Me and two other girls stopped to render aid. He was combative, and mostly unresponsive. We sat there waiting for an ambulance to take the guy to the hospital probably 20 minutes total. The guy died at the hospital. I know we did everything we could until the professionals got there but I can't help but replay it over and over again in my mind.



So back to the start. The trip up was a fun four hour ride in the car. It really wasn't bad at all. One of the girls I rode with had her daughter paint up the windows of the van. We were about as loud and crazy as three girls in a van could get. We all spent way too much time at the expo because I broke down and signed up for Joplin Half May 19. Not sure what I was thinking.

Race morning was a little chilly but not bad....

I started out strong. They didn't have pace groups for the half but I stayed with the 6 hour marathon pace group until mile 6 or 7; that is when I tossed my jacked and realized that my Garmin had paused at .22 miles!! I literally thought I was going to have a heart attack; probably the closest thing to a real panic attack I have ever had. My chest was hurting and I could barely walk, let alone run. I was freaked the out. I mean how was I supposed to keep track with out the garmin. Of course it didn't dawn on me then to just stick with the pace group, we didn't split until mile 10 or so, so I would have stayed on track if I would have had the forethought but nope. Oh well. So I lost my pace group and my mojo for a few miles. I came upon an aid station that was just amazing and they kind of helped me get my groove back around 9, 9 1/2. I just kept thinking to myself I have a lot of time to make up. As soon as I saw the 10 mile marker I knew I was golden. I probably wouldn't hit the sub 3 but I would be just over it. I was having fun again.



I looked up around mile 11 and saw this guy just standing in the road. I though oh crap this can't be good. About that time he went down like a wet noodle (one of Dennis' sayings). I am not sure who helped him to the ground but I am glad someone did, there was a huge chunk of cement that he barely missed. Two girls beat me to him, he was still somewhat coherent at the time and they were trying to give him a protein bar. I stopped and told them to stop doing that because if he does lose consciousness he would choke. I dug out a gu and told them to put that under his tongue. They tried to argue that the gu would be too sweet and upset his stomach We finally got a little bit of gu under his tongue and someone flagged down a police officer who was calling in help. I checked his pulse and it was really high, his skin was ice cold and his eyes were rolled back in his head. I kept calling him by name and asking him questions. He didn't know where he was or what day of the week it was. None of the answers to the common questions you ask. He kept trying to get up and this boy was strong. I sat on top of the big chunk of cement just in case he managed to sit up enough (he wouldn't be able to stay up long) I didn't want him to hit his head. The first responders got there about 5 or so minutes later. They first thought it was a blood sugar issue and while one of them checked that the other put the blood pressure cuff on him. His BS was 105 so with the Gu that was fine. By that time it was full on sunny so I scooted around to shade the screen so they could read the digital read out on the BP machine. His BP was 87/35. This was just the mule vehicle that took people to the medical tent so they started screaming for an ambulance over the radio. The paper said he had help within 2 minutes but I know we waited for the ambulance for at least 15 or 20 minutes. They got him loaded up in the blink of an eye. I left before the ambulance did, there was nothing I could do at that point. This morning one of my friends who stayed the night in LR sent me a text telling me that he didn't make it. Not the kind of thing you want to wake up to.
I am glad I was able to help what little I did but talk about feeling useless!! I feel so bad for this guys family, he was 37!! I have been involved in fatality stuff before when I was a park ranger, but it was from injuries or old people having heart attacks. This is not nearly as "easy" to deal with.

After that it was kind of hard to get my head back in the game. I just tried to have fun with it, tried to encourage people. I stopped and talked to the people dressed up like pirates (my camera died about mile 8), stopped and fixed my make-up and the lip stick stop (right at the finish so you look good for the finish line pictures). Time be damned.


I will be running Dallas for Mike, the guy who passed away. I might not do a sub 3 and that is OK, I want to have a good time and finish strong for him.

Things are going well on the weight and exercise front.  I am down to 128, 8 pounds from the initial goal I set for myself and a pound away from 50 lost since 1 July.  I ran a little on Monday to get the soreness worked out of my legs from Sunday.  I was going to do 3 miles yesterday but the wind was gusting up to 50mph there was so much smoke in the air from wildfires I thought it would be best to rest.  Going to try it again tonight.

Here are some pictures from Sunday....