Another Successful Half Marathon

Happy Monday, Y'all! Where did this week go? It seems to have flown by.

Alright, enough water cooler chatter, here's my week rundown on my workouts. I'm happy to announce that I feel like I nailed it this week. Monday through Thursday I did exactly what I hoped. I did some sort of strength training and some sort of cardio each day! Then Friday and Saturday I didn't do much because I could still feel muscles from earlier in the week and I didn't want to go into Sunday's race with sore muscles. So I was really happy with the week.

The race was an hour away. So my mom and I got up and each left the house by 4:45am. From the parking location, it was a 25 minute bus ride to the start. Holy moly, I can tell you it plays with your mind a bit riding that long on a bus, knowing that you were just driven from the finish line to the starting line...and that you'd be running back!

That race started at 7:30am, so we waited a bit at the start line because it was go time. When the race started we both felt a bit stiff. Man oh man was I happy I rested Friday and Saturday (beyond just running around outside with Mckenna) because I was not feeling too great at the start. My joints ached because it was chilly and my muscles all felt tight. We started out pretty strong. Despite questioning our pace at the beginning because people seemed to be going WAY faster than us, we were doing a 9 minute mile pace, so we knew we could pay attention to how fast it felt others were going. This time we hadn't set out with a plan, but knowing my mom, and her knowing me, neither of us mentioned walking when we hit mile 4 like last time...I think we both wanted to beat our time from last month, but neither of us said it out loud (isn't that right, mom?!) We didn't walk until we hit mile 6, and even then, we just walked through the water stop as we drank, and then started running right away again. We both were feeling it around mile 6-7. My mom's butt was cramping up on her (she's had problems with it and it acted up last race too) and my knee was starting to throb. We both just pushed through. Every two miles there was a water stop, so at mile 8 and 10 we walked through the water stops. At mile 11, mom's butt started killing her, so we walked for a minute or so, and she decided just to push through, so push we did. At mile 12.5, there was a GIANT hill to go over an overpass and we walked again for about 30 seconds to give mom's butt another stretch before the final push. I am happy to say that I pushed it through the finish line at 2:03:36 seconds!! About 30 seconds/mile faster than last month's half marathon! All in all, it was a great race, and believe it or not, a PR for me!! Looks like not training is a good strategy for me?! Ha! I kid...we both kept commenting that we really need to start actually training for them! It was not comfortable like the last one was. In fact, it pretty much sucked the whole second half...but goodness I am thankful we kept pushing and finished well!

There were a couple things I witnessed during the race that warmed my heart and made me believe in the goodness of people. First, around mile 8, I noticed 2 cute little girls in front of us, no older than 13 (yes, there were kids ahead of us HA!). They were tiny and adorable, and running just them, not adult in sight. One girl looked strong and confident when I first saw them. The other looked tired. The tired girl would stop and walk for a minute or two, and then sprint to catch up with her friend. Well after a while of this, I noticed them again, this time, strong girl was holding weak girl's hand...as if she was trying to help take some of her load off. It was the sweetest thing to watch. They made such an adorable duo. The best part, they finished together, holding hands! The other thing that restored my faith in people was the other kind of encouragement, through words, that I heard. One that we experienced was at mile 12.5, when we went to walk for a few to stretch mom's butt out, as soon as we slowed to a walk we heard two men about 100 yards behind us yell, "Don't stop. Come on!" when we continued to walk to hollered again. Thanks to their encouragement, we decided just to forget the tushy and keep running...thank you guy 1 and guy 2! Pride is a beautiful thing sometimes - Ha. I kid!

If you have never done a race before and want to get into running. Do a race!! I can tell you that running can get boring and seem pointless, but I promise as soon as you finish your first race, you will be hooked. The feeling. The people. The excitement. It makes you want more, more, more! Even if you haven't been training, just go walk a 5K to get a feel. It will push you to want to run and do it again! As for us, we will be looking for another race to do soon...perhaps with some legit training first :)

Oh yeah...here's us before the race!