I AM A HALF MARATHON FINISHER!

Pictures first!I'm the 3rd from the front!

Sayin' hi to my fan club!

Crossing the finish line!

My finisher's medal!

The rest of my fan club!

The Hoopes and my friend Tish were SO nice to drive all that way to cheer me on! Thanks guys!

So. . . Here's the low down:

The Morning Of: The race started at 8:00 am. I left my house at 6:00 am hoping to be there around 6:45 am. Well, traffic was horrible and I didn't get parked until 7:40 am. I am so glad I picked my packet up early and not the morning of. I was a little paniky because I thought I was going to be late. I had to use the bathroom before I started and the line was 300 people long. So I ended up starting the race at 8:10 am.

Scenery: Rolling hills out in the country and

The Roloff Farm! From Little People, Big World on TLC! I almost pulled my phone out to take a pic of it as I ran by. But it was at the start of the 4+ miles of hills so I decided to save my energy. This pic brought to you by Google Images.

The Hills: I was reading a blog the night before that said the hardest hill was between miles 3 and 4. So after I ran the first hill, which was during those stated miles, I thought that was the hardest. Boy was I wrong. The second hill was STRAIGHT up for about a 1/4 mile. I, again, almost took my phone out to take a pic. It was crazy! I seriously had to talk my way through it and just kept saying, "just keep putting one foot in front of the other." After that hill, there were still several others, but they seemed very minimal when comparing them to that second one.

Stats:

Time - 2:53:54

Pace - 13:16

Place - 2658/3447 over all

1580/2248 females

As I was training, I ran a pace between 12 and 13 minutes. That was with out hills. My goal was to finish right around the 3 hour mark. After the race, one of the other racers came up to me and told me that she was really impressed with my consistant pace through out the whole race. I was pleased with my finishing time and with my pace!

My Body: After I finished, I felt like I was going to vomit. I didn't, but I kinda wished I would have. I ended up walking a 1/2 mile between 11 and 12. To start running again after that .5 mile walk was one of the hardest things I have ever done. My legs felt so heavy and dead. Toward the end, my feet also really started to hurt. Because a lot of it was down hill (if you go up, you must come down, physics right?) there was a lot of pressure on the balls of my feet that I wasn't used to. Other than that, they day of, my body held up pretty well.

The next morning, now that was a different story. But by tonight, I'm slowly getting back to normal. I do have a massage scheduled for this weekend, and I'm really looking forward to that.

The Whole Experience: It was so amazing to think that I could train my body to run 13.1 miles. I know people do way more than this all of the time. But when I started running in March, I had a two mile route that was so hard for me. I would have to stop and walk for a little bit. But I just finished a half marathon! With 3 months of training! I really am proud of myself! And I would probably do it again. The satisfaction of crossing the finish line and knowing that I accomplished a major goal in my life is unexplainable. A.MAZ.ING! That's the best I can do!

As if running a 13.1 mile race is exhausting enough, check out the post below for everything else we did over the weekend including playing in a golf tournament 3 hours after finishing the race!