My first half marathon

Oh my goodness I was dreading this race!  I had been sick for the past 2 weeks.  I had missed 2 of my long training runs.  I was barely able to run at all last week.  I felt so unprepared.  I had hated every run I had ever done over 8 miles.  And the furthest I had run/walked was 10 miles.  I was scared and hating myself for signing up for this race.

Saturday I ran a lot of errands (one of which was picking up the t-shirt and bib for the race).  After church I was planning on going to sleep immediately.  But time got away from me and I ended up going to the grocery store to get some pasta around 8:30 pm because I felt like I needed some carbs in my system for the next day.  I had pasta with some spray butter, shredded cheese, sliced red pepper and some baby spinach around 9:30 and got in bed around 11.

I set my alarm for 4:45, but ended up waking up around 4:30 am and ate two eggo waffles with peanut butter and had some G2 to wash it down with. My nerves ALWAYS get to me and I have to use the bathroom before the race, plus I run best on an empty stomach, so I wanted to have plenty of time for my food to digest.  I took a shower and was ready to go at 6 am so we could be in line for the 7 am start. 

My friend Steph was running the race too and our friend Kristin came with us to cheer us on.  We stopped at a grocery store near the race to use the bathroom one last time.  There was a line.  We were told we could not park there for the race and had to move our car across the street to a bank parking lot.  We made it down to the race start line and I was hating life.  I did not want to do this at all.  We didn't have to wait too long and then we were off.

(I took no pictures, but saw this picture on a blog post I read.  I'm in the blue closest to the camera.  This was right at the beginning and I can not believe it looks like I am actually smiling.)

I will spare you all the details because most of the time I was just trying not to think too much.  Running is just as much (if not more) of a mental challenge for me as it is physical.  I kept a steady pace that felt comfortable for me.  My friend Steph was going to run the first half with me until I turned into the devil around mile 7 or 8 (as evidenced from our previous runs), but she was going a little too fast for me and I did not want to push myself when I had 11-12 more miles to go, so I just let her go around mile 2. 

The course was flat for the most part until we got to the first hill around mile 4.  I hate stopping to walk because it messes with my head, but I walked up that hill.  And then I told myself it was ok to walk up hills.  Well there were about 2-3 hills after that so I did way more walking than I probably should have.  Around mile 7 I finally decided to walk through a water station.  I was carrying a small water bottle but I had been coughing and hacking up stuff (which I'm sure was disgusting for the people around me) so I felt like I needed a little break.

Then I did a walking/jogging combination for the next 3 miles.  At about mile 10 I was walking a lot.  I would tell myself just jog to that no parking sign 100 ft. away or to the next intersection.  And sometimes I would make it and sometimes not.

I was really struggling the last 2 miles and could barely bring myself to jog at all.  But when I started seeing people with medals walking back to their cars as I got closer to the finish line I started jogging because I knew I was close.  As soon as I saw the time on the finish line clock was 2:44, I kicked it in to high gear just to try to get in under 2 hours and 45 min.  And I did!  My official time was 2:44:59. That put my pace at about 12:35 minute miles, which wasn't horrible for me.

At the end of the race I could barely walk and I can still barely walk today.  Yesterday I said that this race was the stupidest decision I have ever made and I would never do another one again.  Today I am thinking "what could I do if I wouldn't have gotten sick and gotten all my training in?"  I kind of want to do another one at some point, but not anytime soon.

Despite the torture it was really cool to get a medal and I  do feel somewhat accomplished having made it to the finish line!  When I first made my 30 Before 30 list I just wanted to run one 5K so it is pretty amazing that I have actually completed a half marathon!!