My journey to my first ever half marathon started in December when I jumped onto our new treadmill about 8 weeks after having Jade. I had signed up for the race partly because I had planned to do one with my friend carey and instead got pregnant with Sienna :) and my second reason was to have motivation to get back into shape shortly after having Jade. I still remember the first time I got back on the treadmill and ran just one mile and thinking oh dear what have a got my self into. One mile became 3 then 4 then 5 and 6 fairly easily... but I got stuck at 6 for quite a few weeks. It took about a month to over come that hump because I got pretty sick during that time and my motivation dropped a bit. Finally breaking through 6 and got up to 10 and was pretty comfortable but then hit another drop in motivation. I honestly know why they say 4 months is a good amount of time to train.. because I gave myself six months and totally got bored with the whole thing LOL
By race day I was just stoked to go for it.. I knew I had done everything I could have possibly squeezed in including two runs in seattle one by myself and one with Kurtis so he could see what my pace was like. The whole day was a blast from beginning to end I didnt sleep at all the night before anticipating my alarm going off at around 4... kurtis and I jumped in the car and went into seattle where we left the car and had to take a shuttle to the start line... At that point it finally hit me how big of an event this was. I was just one of 26000 runners! So crazy... anyhoo we got to our corral after standing in two really long lines for just to have some sketchy honey bucket experiences ...did i mention there were 26000 needing to use the honey buckets LOL gross anyhoo the excitement builds as the music pumps and you hear the countdowns for the corrals before you.... then it was our turn... 5, 4, 3, 2, 1..... run, run, run LOL and the excitment becomes oh crap now I have to run 13.1 miles. I have to say I didnt expect to actually enjoy this race.. I had treated it as something I committed to and wanted to complete... but I didnt know that from beginning to end it would feel so amazing! There was some good hills that really kicked my butt but we never walked at all which was a big personal goal of mine. We stopped at mile 6 to stand in yet another huge line to pee but that was it... Mile 11 I did start to feel my hips hurting and my legs starting to get tired but ironically enough those last two miles were two of our fastest... apparently despite what I was feeling I was really motivated to get to the finish line... running with my brother only made the whole thing so much cooler it was for sure the icing to have this experience with him, he was a great running partner! We finished in 2 hours 26mins.. which was 4 mins ahead of my goal...For sure one of the coolest things I have done for myself in a long time, I am proud of being able to this for myself finding the strength, motivation and time while having 3 kids LOL I really surprised myself ! And I am on to the next one!!! thanks for listening ;)
