Peer Pressure

Hello there. I feel like I should re-introduce myself to you guys...assuming anyone still pops back in here to check for a new post. I just haven't been in a blogging mood for a while now. Can you tell?

I figured since my sister and her sister-in-law both put up blog posts about our past weekend, well, I could too.    So here's my version of what happened...

The three of us girls, along with their hubbys, ran a half marathon on Sunday.  You may or may not recall that I ran a half marathon last summer, and the short of that story is, it did not go well at all. Going into this race feeling confident that I was fully trained felt much better...and the 30 degree difference (cooler!) didn't hurt either.

If you were around here on Saturday night, you know that we had severe thunderstorms all through the night and the rain was coming down like crazy. I thought we were looking at two scenarios for race day...cancellation, or running in pouring rain. But the storms moved through, the meteorologists changed their tune and suddenly, we had a rain-free day.

The five of us headed out at 6:30am. As always on race day, the nerves start to kick in a little bit...but honestly, that's part of the fun.  We headed over to the starting area and each of us decided which wave we would head out in, depending on the pace we wanted to start at.

Hilary and I decided that we needed one more porta potty stop - cuz really, can you ever get too much of those - and were standing in line for the toilets when the first wave started. Due to the long lines, we actually didn't start in the wave we'd planned on, but in a much slower paced wave.  Ironically, this worked out very well for us.  We ended up in this weird bubble of the race. Instead of dodging around a big crowd of runners at the start, we quickly passed the wave we started with and kind of had the place to ourselves!  We had tons of room and our pace didn't get messed up by runners around us (which easily happens in a race situation).

We settled into a normal long-run-pace for us and it almost felt like our regular weekend runs. This was a great way for me to start. I knew if I went out too fast, I was doomed. But getting a few miles done in a very "normal" time was a real confidence booster and felt very familiar to me physically. Hilary and I ran together for about 4 miles, then she picked it up a little bit and I stayed where we were at.

This was a pretty rolling course. No major hills of death, but almost non-stop rollers. By mile 11, I was kind of done with rolly. Ok, I was a LOT of done with rolly. I am generally pretty strong on hills, but after the 657th hill, I was getting pretty wiped mentally and physically. The other tough aspect for me was the several miles that we ran on the shoulder of a 2-lane road. I did quite a bit of jockeying for a good spot during this time, which messes with your pace and head (for me anyways).

I had to power through the last 2 miles or so, but happily crossed the finish line strong. Not gonna lie though...I was very glad to see the end of this one!

My specific goal was simply to better my time from my disastrous half last summer. I'm happy to say that I improved on my 2:22:12 finish from last year and finished this one in 2:02:06. I think deep down, I secretly hoped I could have come in under 2 hours, but it was not meant to be on this race.

Everyone's next question is, "So, are you going to run a full now?"

Nope. Not ready for that one!  I do like the half distance and may see if I can play around with this for a while. I don't think of myself as a distance runner and a full marathon is utterly daunting to me. So for now...I will keep my sights set on thirteen.