Surfside 1/2 Marathon

I finished a half marathon. That is 13.1 miles. I ran the whole thing!

And with as hard as running is for me, I can't believe I accomplished this. Running isn't hard any more. I trained. I really trained. 3 months of training 5 times a week. 

And after that intense training period, getting to know myself so much better and learning to push myself harder than I wanted to (I have 6 children, I have been pushed pretty hard already), making sure I fit a run into my schedule basically every single day, I was ready to run 13 miles.

I had an audience. I really thought I would run this thing by myself. That I would have to drive to the coast to run the race, run it alone, and drive by myself home.  I was worried I was be too tired to drive home, so I asked my parents to come. 

Not only did my parents come, but my brother Eric and his family came. My sister Bonnie and her family came. And Evan brought the kids down.

The lady at the running store suggested wearing a trash bag to keep warm until my body warmed up. And since it was a trash bag I could easily discard it. It was a little long and so my dad gave me his jacket to begin the run and he wore the trash bag. Seriously, my dad is awesome! He was there to pick up his jacket when I finally warmed up, so that I wouldn't have to carry it the whole run.

The coolest part of the race, well beside completing 13.1 miles, was having my family there. The set up of the marathon was along the coast. You could drive up the coast. So, Evan drove up the beach where I was running (they showed up about mile 6) and kept dropping kids off to run with me. Spencer was the first to run with me. He probably ran 1/2 a mile with me. And it wasn't just any 1/2 mile. We had head winds that were so strong I thought they were going to push me backwards.

Danielle took her turn running with me. Taneal probably ran 2 miles of it with me. Camie even ran with me! Finally at mile 9 I got to turn and head back, the wind no longer pushing against me. But by that point I was more tired than normal because of the wind. And maybe running on the sand. The sand was hard packed, so it felt like I was running on a track. Plus the sounds and smell of the ocean was pretty awesome. And the company.

My sister-in-law Angela ran 3+ miles with me. She almost crossed the finish line with me. She made me feel good. She had to stop running because she was too tired. And she runs almost daily. It was a hard workout. 

This is me crossing the finish line. Danielle and Nathan crossed it with me.

The last mile was tough. By half a mile left, I was grateful that I didn't have much farther. I even thought to myself that if I had more than a mile left to go, I would have to walk it. But I didn't. And so I accomplished my goal, to run the whole thing. My time was much slower than any run I had ever done before, but I hadn't had head winds like that on any run before. I wanted to complete it in under 2 hrs 20 min. But my main goal was to run the entire thing. My time was 2 hrs 25 min. That is about an 11 minute mile. Pretty slow for what I had been doing. But I ran for nearly two hours and a half. And that is amazing. I never thought I could do something like that.

I DID IT!!!!!!

Bonnie, Jarom, and Sage. Bonnie and Jarom made the posters. So cool!

Taneal and Camie. Probably some of my biggest fans. My biggest supporters helping me train for this race. 

Here is the app on my phone that tracked my run. I started at the big box, headed south on the beach for 2 miles, turned around and headed up the beach to mile 9, turned around and headed back to the starting line.

My family. All there cheering me on.

One of my favorite apps is "Find Friends". My mom took a picture of this for me. Me running along the beach. I thought it was pretty cool.

Kids playing in the ocean while I ran. 

All done. Now what do I do?