Whoa, it's been over a month since I've posted!! WAY too long!!! I'm procrastinating right now which is why I'm blogging. I have Bunco at my house tonight and have to cook. :s I have been wanting to write about my first half marathon so figured now is as good a time as any. The oven can wait! :) Well, a few months ago, my friend, Amy, called me and wanted to know if I wanted to run the 1/2 marathon with her. I didn't even have to think about it! OF COURSE! I wanted to do it last year but couldn't find anyone to do it with me. I will always exercise with anyone (unless it's boot camp at 5:00 am..I like to exercise but am not crazy). :) Exercise is so much better with a friend!
I didn't know until the afternoon before the marathon that we were going to still be doing the race. Amy texted me Saturday afternoon and asked if I had picked up my packet yet! I hadn't so I ran downtown and got it. Here is my number and my shirt. I got a little nervous because I had a cold and I thought my big toe may be fractured (I just realized that my toe hasn't hurt at all since the race) but I wasn't about to NOT do it!!! I was really excited and a little nervous.
We've had a really mild winter and the last couple of weeks have been warm even in the mornings. Well, Sunday, it was actually cold! When we woke up it was in the high 30's. It was supposed to get warm as the morning progressed, though, so we dressed in layers. A good rule of thumb is to dress as if it's 20 degrees warmer when you are exercising. Amy got to my house around 7:00 on Sunday morning and Mar dropped us off downtown where we wouldn't have to mess with parking. There were 10,000 people there that morning so it was GREAT to not have to worry about parking.
Elvis is in the house!! HA! HA! :) So many of the runners were dressed up...it was so much fun!
And, we're off!! Look at all those people!!! Amy and I decided we were going to power walk the race. For one thing, my knee cannot handle running which makes me sad. About 2 years ago, I changed my power walking to running and almost instantly, my right knee started hurting. I remember having to limp home, even when I wouldn't run, after mile 3. SO, I have been working on healing that knee back up and now I can power walk with almost knee pain and I can occasionally jog but not for too long or my knee acts up again. I know people don't have the same respect for walkers as they do runners but I just can't ruin my joints just to run, especially when I power walk really fast. It's definitely not like I'm taking a stroll in the park. Another reason we decided to walk it is because Amy is super busy in her 3rd year of med school so we didn't have a lot of time to train. I just kept doing my regular exercise that I always do but we didn't really train like you're supposed to for a 1/2 marathon. SO, walking it was!!! :)
I LOVED looking at all the awesome houses on our route. I wish they were in our part of town so bad! We don't have many adorable houses like that with fabulous porches! I LOVE the yellow house. I had to take my iPhone off my arm and get a picture...the double wrap around porch! LOVE!!! All along the miles, there were wonderful people holding up signs and yelling out encouragements. It made us feel good! I would love to volunteer to be an encourager for a race sometime.
Amy and I were feeling great and loving the whole experience (Amy makes me laugh so hard! She is GREAT!!!) until about mile 11. WHOA! Well, actually, my knee started bothering me around mile 8. I just walked through the pain. The last few miles, my stomach started hurting every now and then. I begged God to PLEASE make it go away and it would for awhile and then it would come back. Then, my feet would hurt and my right leg but then the pain would go away. It was kind of neat how the pain would leave. I have never gone that far so I didn't realize that the pain would actually go away. My knee pain also would leave for awhile which was nice. Amy's feet were really hurting her. She had major blisters later when she took her shoes off. :( We actually ran twice.....a little bit between mile 1 and 2 and to the finish line. I wanted to run so bad but just can't with my knee.
Crossing the finish line! YAY!!! The finishing time is not right....the time on the pix is the time from when the race started which was 8:00 am. We were in the very back of the line since we were walkers. Our finishing time was 3 hours 2 minutes which means we were in line 8 minutes before crossing the starting line.
After we crossed the finish line, I felt great!! All my pains went away and I felt rejuvenated. The people at the finish line has orange slices and water waiting which was great! I wasn't hungry AT ALL. The only thing that sounded good at all was fruit. I told Amy, my fellow chocoholic friend, that all I wanted was one grape. HA! HA! :)
Amy and me at the start and at the finish. The Little Rock Marathon is known for their awesome medals! Aren't they fun?! You should have seen the marathon medals! They were HUGE!!!
Amy's parents met us at the finish which was so sweet. They took me home after the race. I LOVE Amy's mom. She is awesome! She may run (or power walk) the next 10K with us!!
After I got home, Mar had homemade bread, Sprite, water, and oranges waiting on me. The only thing is that I had no appetite and didn't get one until yesterday!! I have noticed that when I do really long power walks, I don't have an appetite afterwards. I also had a cold and was taking Sudafed until a couple of days ago and I've noticed that suppressed my appetite. Mar rubbed my sore muscles for over an hour after I got back on Sunday...it was heavenly! I fell asleep (I only slept 2 hours the night before because of the Sudafed!) and then we went over to mom and dad's. Rosy was there and she got a medal that day, too!! She got one in church because we are all winners when we obey God!!! :) I love that baby girl with all my heart!!!
My finishing time was 3 hours, 2 minutes, and 13 seconds. I wasn't thrilled with that time because I know that I can do so much better than that. I sometimes do 11 minute 30 second power walking miles and would have loved to have done that but when I looked at the walkers, I came in 48 overall out of 275. That's not bad especially for not trying hard. I am thankful that our miles were slower, though, because my stomach may have done a lot worse...and my knee. Speaking of my knee, it has really been acting up. :( Right now, there is no way I could walk for exercise. :( I actually got an appointment to have it looked at, though. I'm going in tomorrow at 1:00. I hope it will be okay. I am ready to get back out there again. Amy wants to do a 10K in a month and I want to so bad!! BUT, my knee has to be okay!
Well, it looks like I no longer have an excuse to not cook for tonight so I'm headed to the kitchen to make a cake and guacamole. I'm having a taco bar tonight. It's also one of my friend's 40th birthdays and she's spending it at Bunco!!! I wanted to make it special so I put up balloons and got birthday plates, etc.
More later...knowing me it will be much much later! :)
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