April 10, 2013

My First Half Marathon

Technically, I’m training for the Oklahoma City Memorial half, which is on April 28th. But this past weekend, our training program had us running 13 miles, and there happened to be a half marathon scheduled in our city that day.  So, a few of us from my group figured, if we’re going to run 13 miles anyway, why not get a shirt and a medal while we’re at it?

So, I ran my first half marathon over the weekend :)

I have to say, I wasn’t nervous.  People kept asking if I was.  It was local, so I was familiar with the route.  And it was going to be a super nice day, so that was a plus.  I think it helps a LOT that I really don’t care much about my finishing time.  I just want to enjoy the run and finish, period.

And, I did finish. :)  I didn’t really have a “goal” time, but I did have an estimated time I thought I should finish, given my usual pace (15min/mi).  I thought I’d finish in about 3:30, and I ended up finishing in 3:13!  So I was really happy with that.  Especially with the killer wind we had to run against for the entire second half.  I have never run in that forceful of a wind.

Like I have said before, I’m a slow runner, and I’m definitely okay with that.  Truthfully, I think I’m too lazy to try and be faster, haha.  HOWEVER, I did have a little womp womp moment when I looked at the official results.  I think there were only 22 people behind me, out of 450ish.  So, you know, not to say that in the FUTURE I won’t try for a certain finish time. ;)

But, that’s not the point, right?  I had a great time and felt so accomplished.

 1

My favorite running partner, Maggie.2 

Crossing the finish line! 4

My peeps!  I tried to get Cooper to run the last .1 with me, but he was getting sick and wanted nothing to do with me.5

Hooray!!  The half that I have been training for is in just a few weeks, then I am taking a few months off to hopefully completely heal my leg that I injured a few months ago. (I had not run more than 3 miles in the last month before this weekend)  Then, I am training for another half in November with some friends from work.

I still don’t like running though, ha!