I love a good half marathon. I love waking up at 4:30am to go run 13.1 miles and be finished by 9am (I'm serious). It is the best way to start a weekend. I love the thrill, the challenge. I must be a runner, eh?
Let me just start by saying, this course was amazzzing! To all of my fellow runners, I highly recommend it. My goal for this race was to finish in 2 hours. I did it! But let me give you the play by play ::
Starting Line: A little chilly, windy, very overcast..."Crap I forgot my plastic bag for my phone," "Need to find the pacer to keep up and stay on track for my goal..." "Oh no, why is she so skinny?!"
Mile 1: "Yeah, this is awesome! Just finished that first mile in record time, was that really less than 9 minutes?"
Mile 2: "Okay, I can do this...maybe?"
Mile 3: "What the heck was I thinking? This is not happening." I learned very quickly in my running career that in order to successful meet a goal time in a long distance race, you must establish even splits from the get go. I was trying so hard to do this and stay strong and in line with the 2:00:00 pacer but I was exhausted three miles in. I immediately decided I would have to give up. It was getting rainier and colder and lonelier.
Miles 4 and 5: I had slowed down significantly by this point and I thought there way no way. I was contemplating thoughts of giving up and calling my husband to come pick me up. The only thing that kept me going was I was on a trail without access to the road until around Mile 6.
Mile 6: "Wait, I just ran that first 6 miles in about 50 minutes?! Okay, maybe I can still do this!"
Mile 7 and 8: All of the sudden, mile 8 showed up and I realized I was way over half way and in record time. I was listening to an inspirational book (I would) called The Magic of Thinking Big! and the author would say "Tell yourself 'I can do this! I am great!' Now say it out loud," and I would literally say it out loud. I definitely got some strange looks from my fellow running crazies. But this book kept me going and motivated.
Miles 9-11: These miles dragged and I thought it would never end. Mile 10 itself felt like 2 miles and all of the sudden the weather switched and it was getting hot. Again, I was stuck in the middle of a trail, a little further from the road so I kept going.
Mile 12: I met the most amazing angel, Janet. She was the sweetest 60 year old woman. She told me I could run past her but I told her she kept me going. We talked and distracted ourselves for 10 minutes through this mile. She was an inspiration and an angel.
I had an experience years ago during another half marathon when I was at about this same spot in the race and someone came up to me and said "How fast can you run a mile?" and it pushed me to the finish line. Thinking back, I swear there was no one there and it had to be an angel guiding me. God is good like that.
Mile 13: I did it...and I'm still under two hours. SPRINT to the finish line.
YES! I did it. 2 hour half marathon. I was elated. It was a joyous moment. My sweet husband was there to cheer me on. As happy as I was, I was also exhausted. My legs were dead for days. But definitely #worthit.
No comments:
Post a Comment