Half-marathon

I'm an official half-marathoner now. I have a medal and a t-shirt to prove that I can run 13.1 miles at a time. I actually did a 15-mile run a few weeks before the big event, but there wasn't a t-shirt involved so it doesn't count (except to my sore legs).

The race, the City of Oaks Marathon & Rex Healthcare Half Marathon, was this past Sunday. Daylight savings starting that day actually worked in my favor. It felt like I was getting up at my normal weekday time even though my clock actually said 5:05. Don't get me wrong, I didn't like it, but it wasn't as awful as it could've been.

We went to Carrabba's with our old neighbors for dinner Friday night and I had pizza, intentionally saving two pieces for breakfast Sunday morning. You know, because pizza has it all: carbs, protein, even fat. And since I was eating at 5:30 and running from 7 until 9, I needed something that would stick with me for a bit.
















{Sorry for the scary close-up of my sleep-deprived, make-up-free face.}

I picked Kim up on my way to the race. It was really nice to run this "with" someone. I say "with" because we didn't actually stay together during the race, but it was great to share the experience.

Kim and I had a (shivering) fan club at the finish line. Oh yeah, did I mention that the overnight low was 32 degrees?
















That's my friend Heather, her family, and the McHusband. I suppose it only made sense for Heather to be there. After all, she's the reason I ran the half-marathon at all. Thank you, Heather!

This is a bad picture, but it's the only one I have of me crossing the finish line. I'm just going to pretend that I was going too fast for the camera to see me properly. Yeah, that's it.
















Checking my time.
















And stretching.





















My hard-earned medal.
















It was a windy morning and my fleece just wasn't doing the trick so I donned one of those ever-fashionable foil blankets.





















Kim and me.
















My original goal was to finish in less than two hours. I was well on my way to that so during the race, I revised my goal to under 1 hour and 50 minutes. Again, I was well on my way to reaching that goal and feeling really good about my first half-marathon.

Then my right leg started hurting around the 8-mile mark. The pain was on the outside of my leg in line with my knee and it went around to the back of my knee and down to my foot. It literally felt like my leg was going to give out on each step so I slowed my pace and eventually ended up walking twice for about a minute each time. That didn't help at all. I was so disappointed to have to deal with this pain and the fact that I wasn't going to do as well as I'd hoped. I decided to just keep going as fast as I could and hope for the best.

For some reason, the pain decreased between miles 11 and 12 so I was able to finish strong. My chip time was 1:54:25. In comparison with women who ran the half-marathon, I finished 203rd out of 1,276 runners. That puts me in the top 16% and I can't complain about that.

My self-diagnosis after a little research via Google is that I have Runner's Knee. Luckily it's not too serious and with a few tweaks, I can continue to run decent distances (like the 8 miles I want to run this Saturday). I took Monday and Tuesday off from exercising, but I'm going back to the Y tonight, and we'll see how I feel when I get on the treadmill.

Kim and Heather are trying to convince me to run a full marathon in March. Now that I've braved the crowds, the cold, and the early wake-up time, a full marathon doesn't sound quite as daunting so we'll see...