My first Half Marathon

Today was a day I officially called myself "unbalanced". What other type of person pays money to run way too many miles all at the same time?? I wasn't really anxious about it at all though. I had trained and actually felt pretty good about it. We had our first Ragnar meeting last night and got home a little late, but I fell right to sleep and slept most of the night. No laying awake worrying about it. I was a little nervous as we were getting ready, but not too much. It was chilly at the start, but by mile 2 I had worked up a sweat and ditched the jacket. I ran the whole first 5 miles without stopping. I have never done that before! I did a little over four last week, but that was it. I felt really good other than my knee was starting to really hurt. When I hit mile 5 I decided to walk for just long enough to blow my nose and eat a Gu chew. (energy) Then I ran to mile 7 took a short break( maybe 30 sec) and ran to mile 9. I was really starting to be tired at this point. My knee continued to hurt, but wasn't killer yet. My breathing was great, but my legs were just tired!! I just passed mile 11 when my knee did some weird thing that made me actually yell "ow!" out loud. I stopped running and stretched my knee and tried to figure out what was going on. After a few seconds, I just decided to keep running and see what happened. What happened next was the high point of my run.

This last week or so I have been searching for new music to run to. I found this great song that I just fell in love with. Right after I started running again, it came on. At first, I kept my pace, but was doing a little "hands in the air" while I was running. Then this crazy burst of energy came upon me and I seriously picked up my pace. That mile I passed 7 people! I'm sure they were wondering "where the heck did she come from?" At this point, I was feeling out of breath, but my knee wasn't bothering me, so I started running faster, but shorter periods of time between walks. I passed a few more people on the final stretch (about 6), and when I turned the corner to the finish line, I was actually able to sprint to the end. I felt so good! Dalin was waiting for me and came out to finish it with me. I thought that was so sweet till he says "what took you so long?" I wanted to elbow him right on the side of his head. Anyway I crossed the finish line at apprx. 2:26 (official times not yet listed). I had wanted to beat 2:30. I had been running with my Nike chip and it seemed to be off by over .3 miles. I was really disappointed with that, but figured oh well. Then when I mentioned it to Glade, he informed me that the course was actually almost half a mile shorter than it was supposed to be. Crap! No wonder I finished better. So dumb. After I finished, I couldn't find anyone. My mom was there, Glade, Stephen, Rhett, Julia, Jake, Kristine...where was everyone. No one there to cheer me in. I walked around for just a few minutes with Dalin and then found Glade standing by the finish line. When I said his name, he turned around in shock. "What are you doing here?" he asked me. They had come to watch me finish, but were too late! I guess that's good for me, meaning I finished earlier than planned. He apologized many times for that. He beat his time from last year by 11 minutes, woohoo! The others did well at the 10k. It was my mom's first time, she power walked it because of her hip and still got a better time than some people I know. Way to go Mom! I was really ready to go home, so we did. When we got there, I showered and then canned 12lbs of chicken with my mom. Funny ending, I know. My knee is still killing me, but everything else feels pretty good! We'll see what tomorrow brings. Still no desire to run a full.