First Race Report

Well, at the request of a few family members, and against the advice of a few others, I've finally decided it's time we joined the rest of the world and started our own blog. However, due to my husband's paranoia about his upcoming SERE school and security clearance concerns, I've been given some limitations. Much like Voldemort, my darling husband (henceforth DH) is now "He who must not be named." I'm also going to attempt to keep my own first name off here so that hopefully he won't be found through me.

On Thanksgiving morning, DH, one of our friends, and I ran the Outback Distance Classic Half Marathon in Jacksonville. I figured my first race report would be a good first blog entry as well. It was my second half marathon and both of the guys’ first. After a whole 4 or 5 hours of sleep, we got up at about 5:15 since the race started at 8. (Big thanks go out to the Navy for scheduling DH at the last minute with a late simulator the night before that kept him from getting home until after 10:30).

My first "half" was back in April at the Country Music Half Marathon in Nashville. I finished that one in 2:46:48 which far exceeded my expectations. I ran a lot of it, but walked a lot too, so this time my goal was to be able to run the whole thing without stopping. To be perfectly honest, my running isn’t usually much faster than my walk/run times, but it was more a mental goal than a time thing.

In April, I ran with 3 other girls, and this time it was with two guys. Totally different experience. With the girls, we spent the night before packing like we were about to travel Europe for the summer. The guys however, were like, “Shoes, check. Shorts, check. Shirt, check.” I had to force them out of the car 30 minutes before the race started to get them to start warming up, whereas with the girls, we were there 2 hours early.

As soon as the race started, our friend left us in the dust (as we fully expected him to) and DH and I started off together. The course was perfect, flat and shady just as described! Since I planned to run the whole way, I tried to run at the first water station and ended up dumping water all over myself. After that, I decided that walking while drinking didn’t count for someone as uncoordinated as I am. Everything else was going great, DH and I stayed together until about mile 8 and a half when he decided he had to use the restroom and told me to go on ahead. Things didn’t really get hard until almost exactly 10.5 miles. That was the length of my longest run before the race and mentally that kind of shook me. I was getting tired and started to tell myself, “If I walk now, I’ll still have run further than I’ve ever run before without walking.” But then I thought, “Well, 2.5 miles is less than the distance to my friend’s house and back. I can totally run that much further.” So I cranked up my super awesome running playlist on my iPod and kept going. One of the best moments of the race was hitting the 13 mile marker with another tenth to go and still having enough left to really push it and sprint to the finish line. I finished in 2:27:02, nearly 20 minutes faster than my first 7 months ago and 9 months after I started running to begin with. I walked back to the side of the road where I had seen our friend and waited to spot my husband. When he came by, I started cheering for him and he grabbed me and told me to finish it with him, so I ran the last tenth again so I could cross the line with him. Overall, it was an awesome experience and I’m really looking forward to running the Disney Princess Half in the spring. In April, a friend warned me that this could be addictive, and I'm finding out that he was right!

Oh, and for the all-important fashion report: Maroon and Pink C9 tank from Target, the camo/teal running skirt from runningskirts.com, pink bondi band, and my new pink New Balance 1224s that only had 13 miles on them prior to the race (stupid I know, but hey, it worked.) I didn’t exactly match, but my pictures should be better than last time. This time I actually smiled for the cameras and tried to look like I was having fun instead of looking like I was having a tooth pulled or something.

Well that's it for now! Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!