Half Marathon Done

I just deleted all my previous posts from this blog. I'm starting over from scratch. I just ran a half marathon this weekend and in about 5 weeks, I will begin marathon training! Right now, all I'm doing is complaining about my sore legs though. Hopefully I'll go for a short run on Wednesday. I do have a 5k on September 26th that I'd like to PR at so I need to start training again.

Half Marathon Report

Dave and I had a nice pasta dinner at his parent's house on Friday night before the race. I went home relatively early and even went to bed early because the Red Sox were rained out, so I had nothing to watch. I slept surprisingly well on Friday night which I was not expecting at all. I woke up a few minutes before my alarm at 6:15 and it was raining still. At this point, I'd been debating whether to wear tights or shorts due to the rain. I wear compression socks when I run due to some calf and foot problems so I did not want them getting wet. I decided I'd go with running tights and a pink Saucony singlet. Got dressed and everything ready to go. I grabbed a Luna bar to eat on the way and my mom and I headed over to Dave's to pick up him and his mom. It was downpouring most of the ride down to the race. We get to the registration and it is not overly organized and we have to stand outside in the rain but luckily it didn't take too long.

We met up with Dave's friend at registration and after we got our numbers, we grabbed what we needed from the car and sent our moms off to breakfast. The race start was about 1/3 of a mile from registration so we walked there. There were a few bathrooms at the building there and the lines weren't too long. It had stopped raining now and luckily didn't rain for the whole race.

We got started about 15 minutes after we got to the starting line. Dave and his friend wanted to start closer to the back, so I did too. We headed out to a relatively fast first mile (8:33) and I felt pretty good. Sometime during the second mile, I separated from Dave and his friend which was fine as we planned to run separately. My second mile was 8:11. It started getting pretty hilly after those first two miles and I really regretted heading out so fast. I got water from a water station for the first time at mile 3 (8:40something). After mile 3 I started to have some problems with my foot. My left foot went numb, as it has sometimes in the past, and I could barely feel it strike the pavement anymore. I stopped to retie my shoe but that didn't help much. I did have salt in my tights pocket so I took that which helped except for the fact that I took it without water, gross! My fourth mile was like 9:55 or something. Not good. But the salt helped A LOT! My foot slowly regained feeling.

I took my first GU sometime between 5-6. I was also walking through every water station at this point. I had to stop and stretch and retie my shoes a few more times before mile 7. I don't have all my mile splits with me anymore so I'll add them in later when I'm at home and have my Garmin. But once I stopped to tie my shoes for the last time and check to see what was bothering my right foot I was pretty steady for the rest of the race. I got gatorade sometime and was still walking water stations and some parts of the bigger hills which I wasn't thrilled about but there were way more than I expected.

I did have a moment at Mile 10 when I wanted to stop. In training the furthest we had run was 10 miles, so I felt a little undertrained but once I got water, walked and GU-ed at Mile 10, I was off and running for the rest of the race. I needed 9:30 min/miles for the last 3 miles to finish under 2 hours which was my goal.

I hit mile 13 and was running down the homestretch. I saw my mom and Dave's mom taking pictures and my mom wanted a high 5 but there was no way I had any energy for that. I crossed the finish like around 1:57:20 according to the clock at the finish line. Goal accomplished!

 

I almost passed out as soon as I stopped and my whole body seized. I couldn't believe how hard it was to walk but I got over to my mom and gulped down some gatorade. I then stretched and walked around waiting for Dave and his friend to finish. They finished about 9 minutes later and we took some pictures. I took my shoes off at this point and the blister on my right foot was killing me. Ugh. Got some food from the tents but I wasn't too hungry.

So that's it. My first half marathon. My official posted time is 1:56:23 which is 8:53 min/mile. Not bad! Especially in the weather and hills.   

Marathon here I come!