Finally a Race Report!

Part of my long travels this month have been due to the fact that I ran the half marathon in Chicago. I was so excited to finally have a race on the schedule and to see how the training has been paying off. The verdict is in, and I am excited to report the training is working! The race wasnt all positive as you will read and I am working to try and figure out what is going on.
After a week in Panama, I traveled for 12 hours to get to Chicago on Friday night. I met my mom and Chris there (for Chris's first time) and we spent a rainy saturday doing a little shopping and sightseeing. I also got a flu shot - probably not the best idea the day before a race, but they dont offer them in Mexico, and I dont know when I will have a chance again. Sunday I woke up feeling good and ate my normal pre-race breakfast of coffee, banana and some watered down gatorade. I got to the race about 45 minutes early and did a warmup and was ready to go. Then all of a sudden about 5 minutes before the race, my HR spiked to over 215. At first I thought that my monitor was slipping down my chest because the highest I have ever seen my HR is 192, but I moved it around and couldnt get the reading to go to normal. We started walking up the path to the starting line and I thought that if I got close to the line, I would pull off to the side and delay my start until it went back down. I wasnt feeling nervous or anxious, so I didnt know why it was doing that. Finally it went down (phew) and i was off. Goal pace was 8:45 and the mile recap is below:
Mile 1-5: 8:36 pace
I assessed how I was feeling the whole way and really was feeling great for my first race back. I decided that if I was still feeling good after 6 miles I would push the pace up a bit
Mile 5-6 - Still felt good and decided I could go a little faster
Mile 6-9.2 - 8:22 pace. Still was feeling good. At this point I decided to have a gel. I never take any gels in half marathons, but my coach has been having me practice this for the ironman, so I went ahead.
Mile 9.2-9.3 - Holy crap I am gonna barf up that gel. I looked down and my HR was back up to 220! I immediately slowed to a shuffle (read walk) to the next med tent. The guy there took my blood pressure and told me it was really low. I told him that was normal until he informed me how low it was. He kept me in there for a while until everything was back to normal. I begged him to let me finish. 1) I felt fine again 2) this had never happened to me before and 3) the only way home was my mom and she was at the finish line 3 miles away. After about 10 minutes he cleared me and I was back on my way at a much slower pace.
Mile 10-13.2 (this was one of those longer races :)) slow pace, not even sure what it was since I had stopped for so long.
Finish time - 2:07.
I was definitely not sad about this race. I was able to keep the pace and think i could have run my goal if my HR didnt spike. The plan is working and I am sticking to it.

After the race I found my mom and Chris (who I had called to warn I was coming in about 15 minutes late because of the unexpected stop) and explained what happened. It may have been too many late nights in a row with no sleep like this one:

In all seriousness, I know this isnt something to take lightly. I have an appointment with the doctor to get looked at before my next race. I have had my heart looked at many a time in the past for various reasons, and have never had a cardiologist find anything life threatening. But this is my heart, and I only have one, so I am getting checked out. Im sure there is a logical explanation since this has never once happened before. It could be that all my travels has worn me down, I could be dehydrated, the gel might have caused a weird acid reflux type reaction, or any number of things. Hopefully it is just a one time benign situation and I am all cleared to move forward, because I would really love to race the triathlon in two weeks. But health always comes first so I am gonna be better safe than sorry!