13.1 miles

Today I ran my very first half-marathon. 13.1 miles. In Jr. high I couldn't run a mile without having an asthma attack. In high school I ran cross country, but felt like I would die if I tried anything over 3 miles. In college someone mentioned that they thought if I could do 4 I could do more, so I ran up to 7. And I haven't tried to go higher than that until this year. Surpassed it I did. In my 5 fingers nonetheless, so it was kind of like running it barefoot. Cool.

When I heard about the White Rock Centennial half, I was excited to train for it. Every half marathon here ends up on Sundays, so I never feel like it's worth it to me to compete. It was commemorating 100 years of races being run at on this course, and it was the anniversary today, so they had a special 1/2 marathon race to celebrate.  I am not currently pregnant or breastfeeding, I have children old enough to leave at home for a couple hours, and it was on a Saturday, so I couldn't ask for better circumstances.

My running partner Kirstin was interested in training for it also, so we have been following a training schedule the last 2 months. Prior to this race, the furthest I've ever gone consecutively was 7.5 miles and I was WASTED after running it. Like to the point I went to bed at 7 pm and had someone come over to help Matt give me a Priesthood blessing. Matt had to even carry me to bed.  I was totally dehydrated because I used to not run with water. Crazy!!!

Anyway, we did all of our weekday training runs with our strollers and kids, and we ran our weekend runs without kids. Two weeks ago Kirstin felt like she had a stress fracture, so she didn't run the last 20 miles with me in our training and let her leg rest in hopes that it would heal up enough to run in the actual race. It paid off for her and I'm so glad it did.


 My goals for this race were to:
1. Finish strong. I didn't want a hobbling in type finish. I wanted to have enough energy to sprint my hardest.
2. I wanted to finish under 2 hours. That would be under 9 min. miles.

The White Rock Lake was the perfect location for the race. It was beautiful and the weather was great. We started out between the 1:50 and 2 hour pace setters. I never actually saw either in the race, so I knew I was right where I wanted to be. We stayed together the first 8 miles or so and at that point I felt like I needed to step it up a bit in order to make my goal so I pulled ahead a little. I could glance back and see K. up until the 9 or 10 mi. mark, but after I hit 10 mi. I was in the zone. 10 was the longest I'd ever run in my training, so I really wanted to focus on my run from that point on.  I ran the entire race and didn't stop to walk once. I was really happy with that. I kept my arms loose the whole time, and I really felt great. With 1 mile left I tried to really get to my fastest-but-not-hyperventilating speed, and at about .1 mile left I was at an all out butt-kicking sprint. The crowd was cheering really loudly. I'm not sure if it was because I was running so hard or if there was someone else, but I'll take it. =) I was def. hyperventilating when I finished, but once I got some delicious cold water in me, I stopped.My time was 1 hour 59 min. and 23 seconds!!! I made my goals and I was super happy about it. I placed 26th in my age division and 415th out of 2011 runners overall. I think I did pretty well for my first half.

I had bought new running shorts this week, but I was super hesitant to run the race in them since I'd not done one training run in them. But I took the chance and it paid off. They were nice and light and the underwear that was built in didn't get soggy like cotton underwear, so that was nice. At my bro.'s suggestion, I used an anti-chafe stick which was helpful. I got a new hat, a new mp3 player, and lots of new music for the run. It was all really great. I love my fuel belt that Matt got me for Christmas. I went through all 4 water bottles during the race.

Kirstin was only 2 min. behind me, but I didn't realize that. I grabbed my water and went around to try and cheer her on, but apparently I missed her and she didn't see where I went. It ended up taking us 2 hours to find each other after the race since we didn't have our cell phones!

I am definitely tired, but I'm not wasted. I had an Isagenix bar before the race and Isadelights during the race. They helped a lot. I feel tired, but I also feel happy that I've accomplished this. Even if I never do another one, I did this one and I did it well. Something I can feel proud of.