My half marathon

Last Saturday I ran my first half marathon. There were so many emotions rapped up in my completing it, but the overriding one is a huge awesome feeling of accomplishment. Before I get into the half marathon let me first explain my history with running. BTW, this post is pretty long.

I never really liked running before, but after Porter was born I had a huge amount of weight to lose and I was very out of shape and for some reason I chose to start running. Little did I know how much I would end up liking it. Back then I had planned on doing a marathon and started training too hard, which resulted in me messing up my IT band on my right leg. So I had to take some time off to let it heal. Then I eased back into training, with the hopes of maybe doing a half marathon instead of a full marathon. I had signed up for a couple of 10k races and I still did them but because of my knee I couldn't really run them. After my knee was better Jeff and I both signed up to do a duathlon, which was a 5k run, 15 mile bike, then another 5k run. I trained and got all ready for the race and was feeling pretty good. Then 2 weeks before the race I found out I was pregnant (little did I know it was with twins) and since I had just had a miscarriage a few months before my midwife said I shouldn't do the duathlon. I could still run I just couldn't push myself. Then a few weeks into the pregnancy I got horrible morning sickness that just wouldn't ease up so I basically stopped running.

I had started the pregnancy at the lowest weight I had been since high school and feeling pretty dang healthy. Then I proceeded to gain 80 lbs. After the girls were born I basically had to start from scratch with my running and losing weight, and I was not excited about that. Before I could really start working out I still had to recover from a c-section, deal with moving, then recover from my skin cancer surgery, all while caring for newborn twins and a 3 year old. The hardest part about running is getting started, and my motivation, especially with everything we had just been through, was limited. Then some ladies from church who were running in the mornings invited me along, so I said why not. I was slow and needed lots of breaks in the beginning, but I kept up with it and got back into my groove. So I decided to sign up for the Windermere Half Marathon. My official training began. I did it properly and slowly this time, and with Jeff's magic hands and skills as an upper cervical chiropractor I was able to train with ease and not have any problems with my IT band. While training I was able to finish losing all of the baby weight!! I had never run more than 6.2 miles before this training began, so every time I ran more than that I felt so accomplished.

Then I ran my 9 miler. I totally didn't fuel up properly before and on the run and my body was fighting me the last half mile. Then I felt terrible the rest of the day. My oldest sister and her husband have both run a bunch of half marathons so I spoke to them a lot and got a bunch of good advice and tips. Thanks to them when I ran my 11 miler I was all prepared and the run went absolutely smoothly. I had hit the double digits and didn't die :) So the half marathon actually seemed possible.

The evening before the race I was all amped up and got everything all ready for the next morning. I barely slept at all that night. I was so excited, and of course nervous. The morning of the run had finally come. I had been preparing for this moment for 3 months. Most of my training runs had been in either snow, rain, hail, wind or a combo of those. I usually had to wake up early to run, mostly in below freezing temps. So I was ready. The day of the run was supposed to be warmer than I was used to running with a chance of rain and lots of wind. Thank goodness the wind was kind and was blowing in the direction I was going.

Then the race began. I was feeling good for the first few miles, then my stomach started to get upset. I better not get sick and puke during this thing! But it didn't get much worse and I kept going. My goal was to finish in 2 hours 15 minutes and for the first half I was making pretty dang good time and seemed like I could beat that goal. But by mile 9 I was really starting to struggle. Earlier that week I wasn't eating too well and Jeff said that would bite me in the butt, and it definitely was. My legs were bugging me and I was tired so I actually walked a few times those last few miles (totally mad at myself about that). This race seemed never ending and I kept wondering why I was doing this to myself. I saw my goal slip away from me, but this was my first half so I cut myself some slack. Then I wanted to at least finish in less than 2:20. I finally saw the finish line and there was Jeff and the kids waving and cheering me on. I was happy it was over and happy to see my family. I had done it!! My final time was 2:18:59. I'm cool with that. After the race Jeff gave me one of those stickers you put on your car window that simply says 13.1. I ran that. Holy crap, I ran 13 miles! And I love that I have that sticker to remind me of what I am able to do. What's funny is that during the race I had my moments of hating life, but sure enough after I finished I was already planning my next half marathon, ha ha. But I know what I did wrong this time and can fix it for next time. Hopefully I can do the Salt Lake Half Marathon on September 3rd, and this time I would like to better document my training. I will gladly run more half marathons, but you will never see me run a full marathon. That is just too dang far and the training would just take too much time. I guess now I can officially call myself a runner!

Me finishing.

I did it!!

Jeff was taking pictures of me so we had Porter take the video, and he did a pretty good job :)