Race Recap: Mobile Half Marathon
Hey friends! I am coming at you today with a long overdue training and life update with a race recap served up on the side. I had my sights set on the Mobile Half Marathon for about six months, but I dragged my feet on getting registered. Three days before the race, I had a call with my coach to let him know that I wasn’t going to do the race. I changed my mind the next day and registered, which totally tracks with pretty much everything about my personality. Before we get to race day, let’s take a step back and catch up since our last chat. Checks notes. It appears that I need to fill you guys in on 14 months of my life. Buckle up, buttercup.
If you have some extra time on your hands, I will refer you to the post, What Are My Goals? from July 2024. There are some good nuggets in there that tee this post up quite nicely. In fact, I just learned some things from past Sam that I didn’t remember thinking at the time. I’m pretty sure your past self is supposed to learn from your future self and not the other way around, but I digress.
The Health Stuff
If I’m being totally transparent, I’ve been in a bit of a funk. My hormones have been a roller coaster, and while I’m actively working with a doctor to get things dialed in, we aren’t there yet. Perimenopause came in like a wrecking ball that I wasn’t prepared for. I’ve heard that the older you are when you have your last baby, or only baby in my case, the earlier you begin perimenopause. I don’t know if that is true, but it seems to track based on my experience. No one warns you what it will be like to potty train your child and start struggling with incontinence yourself. No one warns you about incontinence, period, because it’s embarrassing. But it’s real.
In the meantime, the estrogen that we have added seems to have interacted with the antidepressant that I take and I feel… nothing. Let’s back up to April 30, 2025. I was on the elliptical when all of a sudden I got dizzy and BAM. I hit the floor and was out cold for 10–15 minutes. Obviously concerning. That moment opened a floodgate of questions and doctor’s appointments. I saw my primary care physician, had bloodwork done, and in the weeks that followed met with a sports dietitian, gynecologist, cardiologist, podiatrist, and more. I got checked out from head to toe.
We don’t know exactly what happened. The most likely scenario is a reaction to a new medication or an interaction with something I was already taking. I had just started Diclofenac for osteoarthritis in my big toe joints. It helped, but not enough to justify the risk. I went through an EKG, echocardiogram, treadmill stress test, and wore an event monitor for two weeks. I passed everything and was cleared to resume full-intensity training. That gave me enormous peace of mind.
Lifestyle Changes
Once the medical dust settled, I realized the bigger work would happen in the daily habits. I started working with a nutrition coach in July 2025, and it has been one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. The biggest surprise? I was massively under-eating fat. On a random day in April, I had consumed just 22 grams. No wonder I was always hungry!
I shifted to three evenly spaced meals plus one to two snacks instead of cramming calories at night. I now fuel daily the way I fuel a marathon: early and often. My resting heart rate dropped almost immediately. When you overeat in the evenings, your body focuses on digestion instead of recovery. A workout that used to take 72+ hours to recover from now takes about 24–48, and I no longer feel wrecked after said workout.
Iron has been another major focus. My ferritin is now in the 70s after sitting in the 20s for years. I take iron daily with Vitamin C and avoid caffeine and dairy around it for better absorption. I also had to intentionally reduce protein intake. It took several months to find my optimal intake, which is about 3k calories per day: 340 grams of carbohydrates, 95 grams of fat, and 155 grams of protein. I do track macros, though I don’t think that’s necessary for everyone and could be harmful for some. I’m simply sharing what works for me. I also started taking creatine monohydrate for muscular performance and recovery support.
The Training Cycle
My last “big” race was California International Marathon in December of 2023 and I hadn’t raced a half marathon since the Mobile Half Marathon in January of 2023. I never stopped training, but I realized I don’t actually need a race on the calendar to stay motivated. I genuinely love the process. That said, the CIM training cycle crushed me. I felt exhausted all the time and like I worked incredibly hard without progressing. In hindsight, I wasn’t nailing the basics of fueling and recovery that have played such a pivotal role in this current cycle.
Training blocks tend to run together when not in a specific marathon or half marathon build, but in my mind this training cycle has a fairly clear starting point in late June when I was cleared by cardiology (and the plethora of other professionals I was working with) to resume full intensity. I was so thankful to be healthy and determined not to take that for granted. Not surprisingly, this block became one of my absolute favorites of all time. I could feel myself getting fitter than I had been in years. I was hitting paces effortlessly and recovering quickly. I lost count of how many times I texted my coach something along the lines of, “Holy cow. I just crushed that workout. I am really fit.”
Over the course of the training block, I did several races and ended 2025 with almost identical PRs to where I started. However, looking back, there were some breakthroughs that I didn’t fully appreciate in the moment. The day before my 40th birthday, I ran my second-fastest two-mile ever and my fastest since age 33. I ran my fastest 5K since 2020. I ran a treadmill 10K PR, which obviously doesn’t count officially, but it gave me confidence. I did eke out a tiny two-second (ha!) 12K PR, though part of that course changed slightly, so it wasn’t an entirely apples to apples comparison.
All things considered, training was very consistent. I did strides one to two times per week, usually Tuesdays and Fridays. I did quality sessions on Wednesdays and Saturdays and long runs on Sundays. I strength trained one to two times per week and did Pilates every Wednesday. I also gradually sped up my easy paces, partly from improved fitness and partly after some gentle prompting from my coach that, contrary to what you hear online, it is actually possible to run too slowly on easy days.
The Actual Race
I used the Featherstone Nutrition carb load calculator to determine that I needed 400 grams of carbohydrates the day before the race. I actually hit that number for the three days leading into the race, which might have been a bit overkill, but something worked, so we’re going with it. Race morning I had a banana, a bagel, and half of an Alani energy drink (my current vice!). I ran for just under 80 minutes, so I didn’t feel like I needed any gels along the way. I know some people will probably say that this is not the right decision, but I’m just sharing what worked for me.
The weather on race morning was absolute perfection. It was sunny, 45° (feels like 39° with a 12 mph N wind) and 70% humidity (low for the Gulf Coast!).
In the first couple of minutes, I had to make a game-time decision about whether to try to stay with the lead pack or let them go. I initially let them go, instantly regretted it, and tried to chase them down. I glanced at my watch and saw 5:50 pace trying to catch them. That was too hot that early, so I let them go and settled into no man’s land. I checked my splits for the first few miles and then stopped looking at them. I felt strong and that was all I focused on. I progressed from low 6:10s to consistent 5:40s-5:50s later in the race, but I don’t think the result would have been the same if I had started in the 5:50s.
I got to see Mom, Dad, Richard, Ward and Boudreaux (the new puppy!) several times along the way, which gave me a huge boost each time. The last time I ran this race, Ward couldn’t even walk, and now he was out there running a few strides with me as I passed. Funny side note: Ward actually missed seeing me cross the finish line because he had to tee-tee. If that doesn’t sum up toddler mom life, I don’t know what does.
I chased down a few people here and there along the way but ran 99 percent of this race by myself. I worked incredibly hard to chase down two guys during the final mile. I knew I was somewhere in the top five runners at that point (first female), but what I didn’t factor in was that some of the people ahead of me were actually doing the marathon. In my mind, I was chasing two half marathoners, but as I caught them, they turned right to head back out for their second loop. Oof.
By the Numbers
Distance: 13.17 miles
Time: 1:18:13
Average pace: 5:56 per mile
Average HR: 183 bpm
Max HR: 191 bpm
First Half: 39:42
Second Half: 38:35
First 5K: 19:10
Second 5K: 18:22
Third 5K: 18:16
Final 3.8 miles: 22:29
Post-Race Reflections
Seeing as how it has now been over a month and a half since the race, let’s go ahead and tie a bow on this thing. I had visions of writing the perfect race recap post, but at some point, done is better than perfect. I can confidently say that this is the strongest race of my entire life. The fact that I am saying this as a 40-year-old working mom still blows my mind. Up until this training cycle, I assumed my strongest races were behind me. I never really understood the “mother runner” hype before I was a mom. What I understand now is that your life pre-mom and your life as a mom are almost separate chapters. They can’t really be compared. It is harder as a mom, but it can also be more meaningful and fulfilling.
If I had to summarize this race in one sentiment, it would be that the race wasn’t won at the finish line, but rather at the start line. John Bingham said it best: “The miracle isn’t that I finished. The miracle is that I had the courage to start.” There were mental demons that had to be conquered in order for me to make it to the start line this year. During the pre-race call with my coach, the one where I told him I had decided not to do the race, we discussed that I needed to find my “why” again. We had a similar discussion a few years ago (in the midst of the pandemic when everyone had to evaluate their own why for continuing to train). Here is what I came up with then:
Asking a runner why they run is almost like asking someone why they breathe. I run because I can, and because I can’t not. I run because it grounds me and gives me wings. I run to embrace community and to find solitude. I run to focus and to disconnect. I run to find strength and to be vulnerable. I run to challenge myself and to give myself grace. I run to hurt and to heal. I run to overcome my fears and to surrender my expectations. I run to be the best that I can be, while knowing that I am already enough.
So what is my why now? It’s much simpler. It is, “because I can.” There will come a day when I can’t, but today is not that day. Every day that I can, I pray that I will have the self awareness, gratitude and courage to remind myself, “I can and therefore, I will.”
