The Half Marathon Diaries

My history with half marathons is this:

I ran one once.

That was two years ago this month.

Since having Eva, it's been a little hard for me to get into a good place physically. I started running again, but I struggled to make it a regular practice. It's hard when you have to start over. I fell into a habit of comparing myself to myself, and that can be brutal.

Nine weeks ago, my friend, Rachael, asked me if I wanted to do a half marathon. I had no intention of doing any races this year. Not even a 5k. When she asked me, I spent the next 18 hours mulling it over. I was barely making it through 3 milers at the time, and when I mapped out what my training would look like over nine short weeks, I needed to double my mileage within a week. It seemed impossible, so I didn't commit to the race, but I committed to attempt one month of training, and if I stayed on track, I'd register.

In a shocking turn of events, I went from 3 miles to 13.1 miles by week 6. I ran 13.1 again on week 7. Then I tapered and did the half marathon on week 9. I definitely could have used some more thorough training, but it was good to know that I could do it. I just needed to be patient with myself and not worry about speed.

The two things that got me through my training were:

1. Running with other people
2. Taking photos along the way

I always tried to find something to take a picture of to document my run. This motivated me to get out, and it helped me enjoy the experience. Here are some of my pictures from my training:

 

3 miles 

 

4 miles 

 

6 miles 

 

8 miles 

 

9 miles

  

13 miles

  

13 miles 

Like I said, I did my training runs with other people (the long ones, at least), but for the actual race, I would be running solo. This terrified me, to some degree, because when I'm alone, it's easy to give up. 

The race was Saturday, and things went well, for the most part. I did a lot of mental and emotional prep. I had music ready, and I downloaded the Mormon Channel app so I could stream General Conference.

Around mile 10, I started to feel the craziness setting in, though. I was starting to daydream about laying down in the gutter and waiting for my family to come find me. It didn't help when I passed a couch on the curb with a FREE sign on it. I needed to do something to keep myself going, so I turned my music up and started dancing. I can't remember what I was listening to when I hit mile 11, but I started skipping. Skipping is probably counterproductive in a race since it expends more energy and covers less ground over time, but you gotta do what you gotta do. I skipped until the runner in front of me turned around to see where his friend was and then I felt a little awkward, so I stopped, but as soon as the dude turned around, I started doing the robot.

I danced for about two miles, and then I hit a four-way stop with lots of cars and police officers doing traffic control, and I was a little too visible to keep up with my dancing.

The last mile was a combination of running and walking. Rachael met me before the finish line and ran me in. My family was also waiting for me, and that's always a good feeling.

Daisy presented me with my medal

 

One thing that was a little bit challenging about this race it that I was used to running in cold weather and in the dark. The race started at 9:00 a.m. so there was sun shining on me the entire time, and it was about 20 degrees warmer than I'm acclimated to. I definitely had some heat exhaustion going on, and it caught up to me about an hour after the race. I also had some pretty intense welts on both arms from my arm band. This was never a problem in my training because I always wore long sleeves.

It wouldn't be a proper racing experience without a few horrifying consequences, though.

I'm just glad I can say I did it!

 

Me & Rachael