Half Marathon

This past Saturday, June 6th, I ran my first Half Marathon! It was definitely hard, but such a great experience. It was in South Bend, Indiana... the finish line was in the Notre Dame stadium... yes, the very stadium in which one of the best sports films took place: Rudy-- way cool!
Me just before the race began.... ooh, man I was nervous and excited and wanted to cry all at the same time! I swear that I got a total of about 2 hours of sleep the night before, just because I couldn't get my mind to stop thinking about things to do with the race! Luckily, my sweet cousin, Kim and her hub let me (and my friend Michelle!) sleep at her place (which was closer to the race) the night before... so I only had to wake up at 3:30 am instead of 1:30 am! Thanks again Kim and Bubba!

Michelle and I before the race.


Michelle, Me, Mindy.
I was so glad to be running this race with good friends--it made the race that much better!

Running is definitely not a natural exercise for my body... I feel that my body likes anaerobic and flexibility types of motion much better than aerobic. So, my goal was to run the race within 2.5 hours, which was a challenge for me (I run pretty slow)... but to my astonishment, my goal was accomplished! Yeah!!!

I clocked in at 2:21:56

The first 10 miles felt pretty good, but the remaining 3.1 were treacherous! The best part was entering the stadium... people were cheering and clapping, which gave me a boost to sprint to the finish line (which I did not feel I could have done even 3 miles earlier!).

Posing by the Rudy statue after the race.
Oh, how I was sore during and after the race! This picture shows a blister on my pinkie toe. After the race, I took off my shoes and it honestly looked like another appendage was growing off said toe. It was HUGE and full of liquid-- it also didn't feel so great rubbing against the inside of my shoe during the race... not to mention the other blisters, ouch! But, my blisters weren't the worst of it, my knees felt so stiff and sore... it started to feel like my knee's were grinding bone on bone.

Despite the pain, it was truly a great experience that was not only physically gratifying, but emotionally as well. It was heartwarming to see the support of complete strangers holding signs, setting out sprinklers or radio's on the curb to encourage and cheer on the passing racers. Just minutes into the race, I became overwhelmed and teary eyed by it all. It is definitely something I look forward to doing sometime in the future... not the too near future though!