This whole week I’ve been nervous, freaking out, and scared because Saturday, November 7th was my 1/2 marathon!  Well that day is today!  I was training so hard all through the summer, then….all of this moving stuff started sneaking up on me, so I would postpone running until tomorrow…or the next day…. Then Tyler left for BNOC and the movers came, so I would say I’d run after I moved in with Heidi (she has a treadmill after all!)  Once I moved in here, it became….I have so much to do to get the house ready for sale, I don’t have time to run….Then all of a sudden, boom, here I am waking up at the crack of dawn eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with bananas ‘cuz that’s what is supposed to give me energy to run this goofy thing!

I was feeling scared all the way until I met up with my friends at the race.  Then it seriously all melted away!  We took pictures and joked about how horrible we would all do.  We didn’t by the way, we all ROCKED it!  We all gathered at the starting line, and sang the Star Spangled Banner.  Way to make us all cry before a race, thanks ;)  Then the horn went off and away we went!  Everyone had a chip in their shoe, so thankfully our time didn’t start until we actually crossed the start line, thank goodness!  There were about 1,300 people participating, and I was BIB # 64!!!  Yes, that means I was the 64th person to sign up for this way back in June!  Hey, I wanted the free hat and to only have to pay $50!  Plus I knew if I paid the money, I would be forced to do it and I couldn’t give up!

Once it started, the first 3 miles flew by!  I thought I had only gone about 1.5 or so.  I was so excited to hear that!  The course wasn’t marked and I didn’t have a watch so I really had no clue about my pace or anything.  I just kept on trucking….I hit the 5 mile water station and decided to eat one of my gummy carb loaded things, and I squeezed it too hard and it squirted all over my pants!  It was so sticky, then my pants stuck to my leg.  I tried to wipe it off and just made it so much worse!  I dumped water on it and then just made my shoes all wet!  GRRRRR!  So it looked like I had booger pants the rest of the way.  Not cool!

It was a windy day, and we started hitting the part of the course that took us head long right into it.  That completly drained me, I was so upset!!!  The 8.3 mile water station  was at the top of a hill, and once I hit that….I just couldn’t take it anymore.  So I started walking a bit and running a bit.  There was a live band at the 10 mile mark, so that was cool!  Only 3 miles left, whoo!!!  The last two seemed to take FOREVER!!!  But I finally finished at 3 hours, 21 minutes!  My goal was 3:30, and I beat that!!  In your face 1/2 marathon!!!!  I’m not sure of my official time, that should be in our local paper tomorrow.

I’m so happy to have it done, and to say I did it!!!  I bought a magnet that simply says “13.1″ on it and as soon as we got back to the car, I threw that puppy on!  I just want to thank all of my friends who did it and finished!!!!   You ladies are awesome!!  Thank you for talking me into this maddness and for waiting around for me to cross the finish line!  I have pictures, but I’ll have to post them later when I have my own computer back.  Will I ever do this again?  Hmmm, probably!  Thanks to my awesome friend Heidi too, she watched my kids AND cooked a delicious spaghetti dinner last night, you know, to carb up!