My First Half Marathon

What to say about this... I'm so glad I did it and yet so glad it's done!  If you've been following my blog you'll know that I've been kind of training for a half marathon. My friend has been officially training all winter outside through Fleet Feet but I of course did not comit to the run until about a month ago. I have been training since December but it got much harder when I was working full time and taking night classes this past semester.  I plugged away with about 4 runs a week and had more fun trying out new fitness adventures like yoga and trampoline fitness.

Anyway... my final distance run the weekend prior to the half marathon went horribly. My body just didn't want to cooperate and my side cramp came back full force.  It was suppose to be a confidence boosting final run and ended up making me petrified for the race.

I heard through multiple people that you should take it easy the week before the big race and trust that your hard work would pay off. So I decide to try and focus on treating my body well over the week. Here was my pre-race week workout:
Sun.- horrible 10 miles
Mon.- finally a beautiful spring day so I took an hour walk outside at a leisure pace
Tues.- Yoga, acupuncture, 3 mile run, and trampoline fitness class
Wed.- 3 mile run
Thurs.- Yoga and acupuncture
Fri.- was suppose to run 4 miles and take Sat. off but totally slacked and took the day off
Sat.- ran 4 miles
Sun.- Race DAY!
**I also chugged water and coconut water (ick) all week and perhaps most awesome was that my co-workers threw me a huge carb loading lunch (of course that was on Wed.- the only day we were all able to get together for lunch).

So, some how I thought the race was at 10am only to find out that it started at 7:30am!!!! I had to be at my friend's place by 6:30am to head downtown. Can I just say...yuck!!! My body doesn't function at 5:30am nor does it want to run 13.1 miles at 7:30am.  But I did it.  I woke up, took a warm shower to warm up the muscles, stretched, ate 2 yogurts and a cliff bar, drank some water and headed out the door.  I prepped by going to the bathroom twice down at the starting site but still had to pee again so bad waiting at the starting line and for the entire race!!! (anxiety I tell ya)

I lined up between the 2hr and 2hr10 min. pacers, got my ipod ready and bam I was off.  The first 6 miles were fun because they had neighborhood competitions for the most creative support.  Then 6-10 was a steep hill and many other rolling hills. This separated runners and there wasn't as many supporters as much of it was through a cemetery.  Then miles 10 and 11 had you running on the river walk which was mostly flat but was chilly and windy. However, by mile 12 I soared... I knew "I had it" and sprinted the entire last mile to the finish line.

Perhaps the best part of the race was discovering all of the wonderful friends and co-workers who came out to support me. I literally had support from start to finish.  At mile 2 were my friends Marcy and Sara, mile 6 (the steep hill) my co-worker Chris, mile 8 my friends parents and boyfriend (my friend was running also), mile 10 (right when I started to get a cramp and psych myself out) was my co-worker John and at the finish line was neighbor Bob and his daughter, Marcy and Sara and later on I found out my professor and a classmate were there and cheered me to the finish line.  I should also mention that my phone was going off the hook the day before and starting at 6am Sunday with good luck wishes from family, friends and co-workers.  No wonder I met all of my goals!

Speaking of goals I accomplished them all...finishing without walking or vomiting and my bonus goal of finishing in under 2 hours. I finished in 1hr 56min. 15sec!  I placed 788 out of 2,300 coed overall and 54th out of around 300 I think in coed in my age group.

The questions I've been asked since completing the race: Will I now do a full marathon?  No way jose! Will I do another half marathon?  I won't say never but not in the foreseeable future.

My upcoming running goals is to decrease milage back to 3-4 miles 5x's a week and still incorporate other fun fitness in such as walking, biking, yoga, bouldering, etc...  I have the Lilac 10k race coming up to support my friend Marcy. I might do the local 4th of July Firecracker run with my friend and her family. And I recently signed up for the Warrior Dash at the end of July with my friend and her brother.  I'm psyched about that one because it's 12 obstacles and one is running through fire which is on my bucket list!

So stay tuned for further running adventures!