Hi Friends! Guess what?!?! I finally did it! After 2 years of being determined I finally completed a half marathon! Woot woot happy dance happy dance! I’ve been pretty nervous the last couple days, I really wanted to just be able to run the whole race without getting injured or having something bad happen. To keep my mind off of it, I busied myself on Saturday night by finally making an awesome playlist. I know a little last minute but hey it works!
I could only sleep till 4am, I laid in bed 30 minutes till I finally got up and got dressed, foam rolled, discovered my blog was down and messaged my site care team as well as my hosting service. Wow, what a start to the day! I made sure to eat breakfast two hours before the race start time and took my own advice when it came to fueling up. In general, it’s best to practice what you will eat before the race to make sure it sits well with you. I usually just wake up, drink my UCAN (and eat a bar if I’m going over 8 Miles) and go, so the extra time meant I wanted a bit of real food too. I went with a nice bland piece of toast (sprouted whole grains with flax) with Sunflower Seed Butter and a half a banana, plus a UCAN bar.
…And 1 cup of coffee (not pictured.) We left the house about 6:40am, Mr. Hungry had a migraine but he rallied and came with me any way which I’m so so so thankful for. I drank my UCAN in the car at about 7:15am.
I didn’t realize how small the race would be, or how different the experience would be until I saw how small the crowd was. However, I did appreciate the presence of real bathrooms instead of just porta-potties and super short lines, major bonus! There was also ample room to do my glute activation exercises, #proof I did them!
They had us line up 5 minutes before go time, I was kind of waiting around for the National Anthem to start my GPS and really get game time ready, but they skipped that part and all of a sudden we were going! That definitely caught me off guard so I had to shuffle around bit and didn’t start my GPS till a couple of minutes in. The first 4 miles were all about reminding myself to take it easy and looking forward to seeing Mr. Hungry.
Mile 1- 10:13
Mile 2- 10:07
Mile 3- 9:58
Mile 4- 10:26
I knew the scenery wouldn’t be amazing, but I wasn’t expecting going through all the underpasses. I guess because the race was so small they did not block off the streets, they just had us go under the underpasses. Those were definitely extra hills I wasn’t prepared for, but that wasn’t a big deal. Plus we got the bonus scenery of underpass goodies like trash and shopping carts.
After seeing Mr. Hungry at Mile 4 I first thought “oh no I have 9 more to go” then I remembered it was only 2.5 miles to the turn around which sounded way better. At this point my Achilles started to hurt, it wasn’t bad, it was just uncomfortable. I’ve been experiencing some discomfort on the last couple of runs, but it totally goes away right after the run so I kept forgetting about it. With the achy knee drama I totally forgot to mention it to Dr.K so I think that one is my fault. I slowed down and the discomfort subsided, so I just kept going nice and slow.
Mile 5- 10:33
Mile 6- 10:41
Mile 7- 10:35
Mile 8- 11:02
I’m not totally sure but I think they changed the course from what was posted online. When I look at it (even now) it looks like the turn around point is at the halfway point, but it wasn’t actually till we were closer to 8 miles in! Well the good news is once we finally got there it was only 5 more to go! My heel felt a lot better after the turn around, although it was definitely still uncomfortable. At this point I just looked forward to seeing Mr. Hungry again, although I couldn’t really compute in my head where that would be. Luckily I knew the area well so I figured it out once I saw a few street signs.
At this point, it really started to get warm and I made a mental note that 60’s are shorts weather NOT pants.
Mile 9 – 10:22
Mile 10- 10:42
After the turn around the number of bikers out for training rides really amped up, after almost getting hit I had to be really careful to look out for them. That was kind of unexpected since usually races are generally isolated from the rest of the world. After I saw Mr. Hungry apparently I got really excited because the next three miles I picked up the pace, plus I stopped caring about babying my heel since I only had 3 more miles!
Mile 11- 8:47
Mile 12- 10:17
Mile 13- 9:50
Was it everything I hoped for? Absolutely! Despite the small crowd, lack of scenery, and almost getting run over by bikers I’m so so so happy to finally have a half marathon in the books! I felt like my fuel was on point, I was happy with my breakfast decisions, UCAN, and the shot blocks I took at mile 6, 9, and 11. Of course I’m a little disappointed about the Achilles drama, but it kind of just pushes me to want to do another one! And so it continues…..
Total Official Race Time 2:14:10
Post race I foamed rolled before we got in the car for our 45 minute drive home.
When we got home we took Nala to the dog park and then Mr. Hungry convinced me to go out for burgers for dinner (I also had a quest bar and a banana)! I annihilated that burger (I took the bun off, just not my thing) and sweet potato tots!
Today I’m looking forward to an awesome massage and an awesome week! Have a good one everyone!
HUGE congratulations on such a successful half marathon! It’s so key to follow through on your eating habits and warm-up even down to the daily coffee. 🙂 Great job!
Thanks!!!! It was fun!