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!

Color Run 2014 and upcoming races

The Community Service floor at the College I work for has been planning their very own color run for a few months now.  Today was the official race day and other than the weather everything went really well for them.   What's awesome is that the funds went to local organization to help them fund their programs (Hickok Center for Brain Injury).  Most of my co-workers and I supported the event in a myriad of ways in part because our student worker was organizing the race. I supplied a raffle basket, secured some other funds through the campus Wellness Committee, helped with race organization input early on in the planning process, promoted the race and ran in the race. My other co-workers volunteered (or rather I coerced some of them) in being the official DJ and assist DJ for the race and our reception was an overall supporter and helper throughout the event.  Check out the YouTube video that was made of the event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DouHYHMssdA

The event was designed successfully down to the last detail. Many clubs and organizations on campus helped out. There were plenty of volunteers, an official large time clock, a race map, bibs, t-shirts and sunglasses for runners, tons of great after race food and drinks, rockin music and awesome raffle prizes. (I haven't found out if I won any raffles yet but I'm keeping my fingers X!) **Update- nope I wasn't a winner.

The only disappointing part was the weather. It was cold, grey, rainy (though it stopped just before the race) and extremely windy right during the parts of the run that had the hills. Uggggg.......  Despite all of that my time was really good. I came in the top 10 out of about 160 runners with a majority of them being college students. Hooray for me! **update- received an email on 4/17/14 with the time results- I placed 6th overall and came in 2nd place for overall female. Boy I was right behind the 1st place female runner by like 20 sec. or less!

So here are the upcoming races I'm signed up for:
1. Mess a Dress 10k April 12th

2. Rochester Flower City Half Marathon April 27th-**Yes, I just signed up.  After many many horrible runs (I think my body was rejecting the thought of running for that long) I was able to run 13.5 miles without killing myself the other day.  I'm still slightly apprehensive about the race but will continue to train over the next 5 weeks, hope for good weather which means no WIND and do a lot of praying that I'll survive and my body won't revolt on me during the race. Goal: Finish without walking. Bonus: Finish in 2 hours or under.

3. Lilac Festival 10k May 18th

*I had really wanted to run in the Corporate Challenge Race and have been helping my college to take part in and then just this past week I found out that the summer session one class I'm taking is on Tues. and Thurs. evenings right smack in the middle of the race which is on a Thurs. evening in May. Boy does that stink big time!!! I'd skip class but since it's only a 6-7 week class probably not the best idea. Damn!