Mission Accomplished

I set the goal to train for a half marathon at the end of December, but it was more wishful thinking than anything else. I gave up the idea of running an actual race pretty quickly when I couldn't find a half marathon that was close by (within an hour). Running has always been something I've forced myself to do to stay in shape and to try to control weight gain, but never something I was passionate about. I have run 3 miles three times a week pretty faithfully since high school. Running anything beyond those 3 miles wasn't something I even ever considered, so each Saturday during my training when I did my long runs, every additional mile I added on was an amazing feat for me.


My awesome friend, Stacie, found a half marathon that was only 90 minutes away. I figured that was doable, and so I now had a deadline for my training: April 11th, which helped to keep me focused. Starting out in my training, I averaged 10 minute miles whenever I ran distance. After 2 months of training, I still hadn't improved that average by much on my Saturday runs (9:45), so I was getting a bit frustrated. Then I decided that during my weekday runs, I was going to start doing some sprinting to work on my speed. I did mostly 1 mile sprints (running at the fastest speed I could push myself for the duration of the mile), but I did run a couple of 2 mile sprints as well. It was amazing to me how I would feel like there was no way I could run any faster one week, and then be able to shave a substantial amount of time off the next week I ran. The fastest mile I ever ran before my training was a 7:04 mile in 7th grade. I never thought I could beat that time, but last week I ran my fastest mile ever at a 6:28 (with Caleb in the stroller).


Thanks to the sprinting, I started to notice that I finally was able to improve my speed during my distance runs. A month ago, I ran 13 miles in my training at 2 hours and 3 minutes (just under a 9:30 mile), so my goal for the actual race was to run the 13.1 miles under 2 hours. In setting this goal, I knew it would be a stretch to actually achieve it. Perhaps it was the energy that comes from running with other people or the great new music Matt downloaded on our ipod for me, but I achieved my "mission" and ran the race in 1:58:45, which is pretty close to a 9-minute mile.


The race site was in Groveton, Texas, and we were up at 4:30 in the morning to allow plenty of time to get there and get checked in etc. We didn't check the weather for the day of the race beforehand and just assumed it would be like the previous day, which got up to the 80s. Imagine our surprise when our car read the temperature at 50 degrees. I was not dressed for the weather at all, but thankfully the race fee included a long-sleeved t-shirt! It did warm up to 55 degrees, but I was so cold for the first couple of miles!

Before the race

Beautiful sunrise!

The starting line. All the serious runners are at the front. I was somewhere mixed up in the middle.

We started and ended the race at a highschool track. Here's me at the last .1 mile of the race. I was so excited to see Matt and Caleb at this point and it gave me the extra boost I needed to sprint faster than I already had been for the last .5 mile.

In my training, whenever I ran past 10 miles, my knees hurt so bad, and I felt weak and dizzy. I definitely had nothing extra to give at the end. I was amazed that during the actual race, I felt great right up through the end of the race. I was able to pick up my pace for the last 2 miles and started working towards a sprint during the last 1/2 mile. A girl that I passed in the last 1/2 mile came up and told me how impressed she was with my strong finish. Matt quickly jumped in to brag that it was my first race and the girl was shocked. She's run 3 half marathons and congratulated me for doing so well on the first one.

This whole experience was so invigorating and just so amazing to me that I could actually do this! I really appreciate Matt's support throughout this goal. He watched Caleb Saturday mornings so that I could run without the stroller, which means he oftentimes gave up his Saturday morning football. Getting up early and driving to and from Groveton was a huge sacrifice as well, but I so appreciated having him and Caleb there for support! I'm really grateful that one of my college roommates, Laura, started getting into half marathons and marathons because that's what inspired me to do this! I don't know if marathons are in my future, but I definitely would like to do a few more half marathons...