I completed my 3rd half-marathon (The Duel) yesterday morning here in town which was really nice....It was very weird to just drive on over Saturday evening and pick up my packet in 2 seconds....Then sleep in my own bed...Roll out of bed around 7 with plenty of time to eat and get ready and leave the house by 7:45 for the 8:30 start time....
But let me back up by saying that I DID NOT want to run this thing....After White Rock, I've kept up my long runs on the weekend...I got in an 8 miler, then 9, then 10, then 9 again so I went ahead and signed up for this a few weeks ago...Eventhough I hadn't been as consistent on my weekday runs (I'm trying to squeeze in this new bootcamp class and some zumba), I thought I would just go for it....My problem started last week when it was 70 degrees one day, cold the next, warm the day after...So my allergies turned my nose into a complete faucet by Thursday evening...Friday I didn't feel great...Saturday I knew I had a cold--my head was hurting, sore throat, congestion...All that fun stuff....We promised the kids we would go to the hockey game Saturday night but I was in bed by 9:30 thankfully....
The alarm going off at 7 am Sunday was not fun...I really, really, really had to make myself get up...All I wanted to do was sleep, but I hated wasting $65 dollars...So I decided I would just force myself to go...And if I had to walk it, fine...If I was super slow, fine...I just needed to finish....I was emotional the whole way over there which is not like me...Nervous--usually, but emotional--no...I guess b/c I felt so stinking bad and I had zero confidence...Going up and down the stairs at work on Friday was exhausting...How am I going to run 13.1 miles for 2+ hours!!!
So I get there and my friend Kim was running the 5K...She gave me her cell number in case I needed to call her if I died on the trail somewhere and needed someone to come and find me:)...So I felt a little better about having a back-up plan....
We started right at 8:30...the 1/2 marathon runners also ran with the 5K runners...We headed over towards Lucy Park....When we circled back around 3 miles later to the starting line and I saw all the 5K people heading right towards the finish line, I really thought about just turning and calling it quits....I still had 10 miles to go--how am I going to do this!?!....But I didn't, I kept going....
I had made the mistake of wearing a really tight long sleeve shirt under my short sleeve shirt...I was getting pretty warm fast...So at the 1st rest stop (mile 4.5), I opted to take a good 3-4 minutes and basically undo everything (headphones, headband, arm band, top shirt) to take off that long sleeve shirt and then I had to put everything back on...But again, not running for time or I wouldn't have done that....
Then the real fun began...Getting out of the woodsy area part of the trail and more out in the open....Since the wind was OUT OF CONTROL on Sunday it was a blast running head on into for many miles...Yes, it wasn't as horrible as the wind got later in the day, but it wasn't fun....There were times I just ducked my head and ran especially on the hills....I've never ran on that section of the trail and had no idea where the trail even was on that part of town....But finally we hit the turn around over at Patterson Auto Center and had about 4 miles left...That was nice b/c the hard wind was now at our back....So if I would have been healthy and felt awesome, I could have really used the wind to speed up...But honestly I had nothing in me....I just coasted as best as I could....
I hit that last rest stop and took about a minute break to get my long-sleeve shirt that I had left lying on the ground...Grabbed some water and ate some gummi bears....I only had 1.7 miles to go...Noooo problem...That's nothing....But it was honestly the longest 1.7 miles of my life...I've never checked my runkeeper so much b/c I just knew that it had to be longer than that...I was just tired...And done....I had nothing left but mangaged to make that last mile one of my fastest of the day....
In the end I finished with a 2:18:21....(White Rock was 2:11:38)...So a lot slower BUT I was pretty proud of myself since I did stop for a good 4 minutes all together ....I really proved to myself that my body can do things if I just believed in myself a little more...That no confidence thing really gets to me a lot:)
But it's exciting knowing I completed my 3rd 1/2 marathon...I plan on doing another one here in town on March 3rd and I would LOVE to go back to Rock N Roll Dallas at the end of March since that's where it all began!!
Oh and when I got home, Kohen had been throwing up the entire time I was gone...Fun times....So he and I stayed home today...I am sick and I felt he definitely could use a day to recoup as well....
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