My first Half Marathon

Today, I was so excited for my first half marathon.  I have been training for the past 10 months and although I slacked the last 3, I felt confident in running 13.1 miles.  I ran the race with my brother-in-law, Jeff.  I woke up at 5:30 in the morning and picked him up.  We arrived at the American River Parkway and was suprised that there were over 2600 runners in the race.  We both knew we would be running about a 10 minute mile, so we filed in with all the other 10-minute mile runners.  We started the race off at 7:45am.  I was feeling good around 8 miles, especially after turning around at the half way point and seeing a ton of people still behind me, knowing that I wasn't the last runner in the half marathon.  I brought along with me Gu which is an energy gel to maintain energy and blood sugar throughout the race.  I had my first one at mile 5, and then I was going to use it again at mile 10.  At mile 8 or so, Jeff was complaining that he was starving, so I offered my last Gu to him.  At mile 11, I was really feeling it and I knew I couldn't maintin the 10-minute mile pace, so I told Jeff to go ahead while I slow down a bit.  He took off and ran the last 2 miles at a 7 minute pace.  I on the other hand ran about a 11-ish mile pace.  I was so happy to see the 13 mile marker, knowing that I had only 0.1 mile left, and of course that was the hardest, but thankfully there were so many people cheering me on towards the end.  Right before the finish line I spotted my family cheering me on and that's what brought me so much joy even though my leg muscles were shot and I was struggling the last little bit.  I am so happy that I was able to accomplish something so big.  Afterwards, I thought there is no way I would ever do that again.  But a few weeks later, I'm already planning on doing it again.  It is kind of like birth, you wonder why you do it during labor and then afterwards you get a great reward and later think, "that wasn't so bad, and I can do it again."  Next time, I think I will train for 8 weeks because I felt ready at 7 weeks. 


My wonderful kids waiting for me at the finish line



Before the race with my brother-in-law, Jeff

Geting closer to the finish line - already ran 13 miles!!!

 

I have a smile on my face after running 13.1 miles!

Weak in the legs, and red in the face, we posed for a final picture together

Stats:
* I placed 117/320 women in my age group
* I ran it in 2 hours 13 minutes
* I averaged 10:12/minute mile
* I placed 1075 out of 2600 runners
* I was in the top 30% of the runners