13.1 miles in the bag

Back in July, I got the bright idea that I could run a half marathon. Around September, I wrote about losing my mind.  I somehow made it through the training and felt pretty good after my first few 10 mile runs. However, about 2 weeks before the race, I got sick and that put a damper on things because I felt terrible and missed a few training runs, including my last 10 mile run. 5 days before the race, the doctor diagnosed me with a sinus infection. By the actual race day, I was feeling a little better, but still not back to 100%.

I woke up at 5:30 on race morning with serious butterflies in my stomach. I gulped down my protein shake, got dressed, and was in the car by 6:30, still a little in shock that it was actually race day. Luckily, parking was easy and by 7:30, my bag was checked and I was standing in line ready to start. I decided to jump in the corral for the 2:08 pace time, which was a 9:45-ish pace. I thought that would be pretty managable. The first few miles didn't seem to bad, but by mile 4 I started feeling not-so-great. It took that long for the congestion to thin some, but evidently my corral was a popular one and a huge group stayed with the pace runners almost the entire race. The pace team did get a bit ahead of me, but as long as I could keep them in sight, I felt ok. This course was really hilly, but when I crossed the 10k mark at 59:53 I was ecstatic. I was slightly ahead of the pace team at that point and feeling pretty good. Then, at mile 10, it went downhill. My left calf muscle started tightening up, plus the balls of my feet were killing me. I powered through, but around mile 11 I couldn't stand it and started walking. I walked most of mile 11 and did a walk/run through mile 12. I was so happy to see the finish line and started crying immediately. I really don't remember crossing the finish line and there was certainly no happy face from me. I was sobbing from pain, but thrilled to have crossed the line. I then began to search for Todd, my mom, and the kids. A volunteer gave me my medal and it seemed like a surreal moment. I was trying to call Todd but had a poor signal, which didn't help the crying. Finally, I saw Todd and I buried my face in his shoulder and cried and cried. Finally, I was able to calm down, explain what was wrong, and that seemed to help me feel better. I was able to smile and take my finisher's photo and walk back to the car, so I was pretty sure there wasn't any serious damage. Todd got a text showing my official time and I was a little disappointed to have finished almost 3 minutes slower than my pace team. My official time was 2:10:41, which looking back, is still 4 minutes faster than my original goal. However, I know I could have finished with that 2:08 pace group if my calf muscle hadn't been hurting.

But, I now have motivation to do it again. I had even considered running another half in a few weeks, but Todd is graduating that morning and I would never miss watching that. Todd is also pretty jealous that I've finished a half now, so he is training with me to run another one in April. I've got about 20 weeks to train and I am aiming to beat that 2:08 pace with some time to spare.