I did it!!! I now have my second Half Marathon under my belt and feel amazing about it! Unfortunately I didn’t feel amazing during the actual run, but more on that in a minute 🙂
We had a great weekend including Friday night going to visit Chad’s Mom and Grandma for his Grandma’s 87th Birthday!!!! Pictures are to come….my camera battery is charging!
Yesterday we went to the dog park and hit up a local Harvest Fest going on downtown, and then relaxed the whole day which was nice with my long day coming up today.
The alarm went off at 4:00 am this morning…Yowzers! That should be illegal on a Sunday Funday! After gathering all my stuff, Jennifer met me at my house at 4:45am and we were off. We had about an hour drive and had to pick up our race packets before the race so we needed to hit the road early :( Unfortunately the drive to the race was HORRIBLE! It was still dark out (obvi) and it was SOOOOO foggy….seriously, I had to go about 15 MPH on the interstate! I couldn’t even see 10 feet in front of me! Thankfully we had plenty of time to spare so we just took our time and drove slow, but it was the worst fog I’ve ever had to drive in in my life!
But, we made it and picked up our packets. I was thrilled because I LOVE race t-shirts….like seriously obsessed :) It may or may not be the main reason I do races! LOL And thankfully this race shirt is AMAZING. Sorry I can’t post pics right now because again, my battery is charging. But it’s my favorite by far :) It’s black and dri-fit = cute!!
As we were prepping by my car I got out my camera to have someone take a picture of Jennifer and I…..well, I soon realized that I forgot to CHARGE MY CAMERA! What a bad blogger I am!!! I was pissed! Oh well….we were cute, cold, nervous, and excited…picture it 🙂
The gun went off at 7 am on the nose and we were off. Miles 1-4 were okay….I felt alright but definitely hadn’t hit my groove yet so I couldn’t wait to get until 5 when I thought that would happen. NOPE. Honestly? I didn’t hit my runner’s groove the whole race! Mile 6-8 were probably the best, but again, not great. There were 3 small hills along the course which I’m not used to at all so that was a little tough, but doable. Around Mile 9 and 10 I seriously started to wonder if I could make it.
Going into the race, I never once considered trying to beat my Half Marathon time from my first half in May (2:11:50) because our training runs hadn’t went that well and we felt really unprepared. Plus, we were really just doing this for fun and to do a race together. My bestie, Renee, had planned on running this race with me as well as another friend of ours, but they were both unable to so I was happy Jennifer was able to do it with me!! Not only had Jennifer and I undertrained though, our longest training run was 10 miles (last time I did 13 as my longest training run).
However, around mile 8 or 9 we realized that we could actually surpass my last time and get a new PR! We agreed to “kick it up a notch” around mile 10 and really book it for the last 3.1 miles. Um yeah. That didn’t happen. Mile 10 came and went and my legs seriously could not move any faster! I felt like crap and wanted to quit. I told Jennifer that if I asked to stop and walk that she shouldn’t let me and she needed to push me to the end! Around mile 12 I actually told her that if I passed out, to just leave me because I’d be okay and I’d see her at the end :) I actually wouldn’t have been surprised if my legs gave out….I was that exhausted!
Once I saw that we were averaging about a 9:15 mile for our last mile, I started sprinting because we were SO close to beating my PR! We had 2 turns though and I kept expecting to see the FINISH LINE but I didn’t. We kept looking at each other like WTF, it has to be here soon or we’re not going to make it!
Finally it was within site and about 100 yards away. We decided to “sprint” to the finish, but the sprint at that point was more of a slow jog because our legs were jello!!!
We dashed to the finish line and held our breath at the time…we were super close to my PR but I wasn’t sure (keep reading!). The finish line was very poorly organized though and you immediately had a LONG wait, standing in line waiting for food and drink. We both though we were either going to puke or pass out just standing still for so long, so we went and sat and stretched and that was such a good idea! I couldn’t even catch my breath at that point. Thankfully 10 minutes later I started to feel human again so we got up and got shuttled back to our car (starting and finish line were different).
It was then that we decided a small shopping trip was in order and some lunch was needed ASAP! We hit up Taco Bell (hey, we earned it!!!) and were on our merry way. Driving a half hour home was not my idea of a good time but thankfully we had some interesting discussions on the way home 🙂 so the ride flew by!
I instantly checked our chip time on the internet when I walked in the door……we missed my PR by 26 FREAKING SECONDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Our official chip time was 2:12:16. On one hand I’m pissed that we pushed ourselves SO hard and were that close and didn’t beat my time! There were a LOT of water breaks so if we had skipped one, we could have done it! Or if we trained better, I would have blew my time away!!!! On the other hand, I’m SO proud because honestly, I thought we’d have to stop and walk numerous times (but didn’t ONCE!!!) and I figured our time would be more like 2:20 or something. So I guess it’s still great :) I guess now I have something to shoot for at my Vegas half in December 🙂
Alright, I’m doing some much needed relaxing now and am headed to bed soon…..I have a long day ahead of me with work and then Bunco tomorrow night so I’ll be gone from 7:30 am – 9:30 pm :( Not cool! Thankfully I have Friday off though so I have that to look forward to!
Night all 🙂