Anyway, my friends, Misty and Joani, who I work out with at Gold's, decided we needed to train for something specific other than just come to the gym with no real purpose. During this same time, I met a lady in my neighborhood, Lindsay Kehl, who was training for the Half Marathon at Thanksgiving Point. I decided that was what I wanted to do was train and run a half marathon. I guilt-ed my friends into signing up and would you know that it was a 10 week training schedule and it was exactly 10 weeks to race day. Basically you run every other day and have long runs on Saturday or Sunday. My friends both ran their long runs on Sunday but I did mine on Saturday which meant I ran alone. Lindsay would run sometimes with me on Saturday, but she is a more seasoned runner and I felt like I held her back so I asked Teesh if she would like to run with me and she agreed. We would run a pretty similar pace and both were OK with breaks. It was fun to have long chats with Teesh when were training. After a few weeks of training I asked Teesh if she would like to run the half with me, she excitedly agreed. We signed her up the next day. I had been told by countless people to not push myself so hard on the first race I do. They suggested I enjoy myself more than worry about breaking records. I have to say I agreed with them and made these as my standard.
I decided I had three goals for myself:
1) I would finish the race
2) I would not be the last one to finish
3) I would walk some of the time
Race day was on Saturday, the 28th of April and the race began at 7:00AM sharp. Teesh and I ate steel cut oats and each had a banana. Lindsay drove us since she was more familiar with what was ahead. We left at 5:45AM to make sure we had enough time to go potty and warm up. It was a brisk cold morning but actually after we began running it was perfect temperature. The race began and we all spread out to run our own paces. I run slower than most but I am ok with it. I don't care to break any records, I just want to enjoy myself and enjoying myself means running slower.
I finished in 2 hours 40 minutes and guess what?....I completed everyone of the goals I had set for myself, oh yea who is the rock star!?
Teesh beat me by about 1.5 minutes and Misty and Joani were both finished in 2 hours 15 and 2 hours 25. We were all so proud of ourselves for competing and finishing.
As I reached the 12 mile marker, I became quite emotional realizing I had done it and that I only had a little over a mile left. A complete stranger asked me to push her the last little bit so the last mile I ran with a lady who was incredibly grateful for me encouraging her to finish. It was great to be surrounded by all these people who accomplished my same goal.
At the finish line Corby, Sierra, Malia, Bria, Ada, Cindy, Sarah, Scott(a friend from gold's), and Kathleen were all cheering us on. What a great moment!
And that is the end of my first half marathon. I have a goal to run 4 in the year 2012 and hopefully with each one I will improve and become the best I can. Go half marathoners!
