Run, work, spend time with my kids and husband, sleep, go to the gym with these girls... Repeat. That's my life.
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| Really love these two ladies.
I finished my 5th Half Marathon of the year on Sunday. The Snohomish River Run. Last year it was my first 10K and I watched all the crazy people huffing and puffing doing 13.1 miles as I did my first 6.2 stressing that I'd never make it as far as they are. Now I've done 5 of them! This was my first half since June. I was so worried about all my 1/2 marathons on my schedule that I was looking at the time limits on them online. This one had a 4 hour limit and I thought since I'm a turtle lately with my foot that I would need all 4 hours. That wasn't the case at all. I finished in 3 hours and 2 minutes. Pretty good since my 1/2M PR is 2:51. I was excited for my 3 hour finish.
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| Start line photo at 0-dark-thirty with my cousin
First off, I want to say that my Altra Torin shoes are awesome and I don't even need to use KT Tape anymore. I use my compression sleeves and my plantar sleeves only. Sure saves a lot of time when I'm up at 5am to go run. I'm glad I have them! I picked up my cousin at 6am to head up to Snohomish. We picked up our race packets, warmed up a little and took off on our race. I decided before I started that it didn't matter if she was faster than me. I had a new playlist of music and I'd do the whole thing at my pace and finish when I finished. My cousin took off ahead and then I passed her when she slowed to take off her jacket. Then a little further down, she passed me and I didn't see her again for miles and miles.
I had about 30 new songs in my playlist so that helped a lot but running for miles all by myself, even though I'm out there with hundreds of other runners, gets boring. I tried to spend time looking around instead of straight in front of me. I'd spend time people watching and checking out what other people were wearing, and how their body mechanics looked when they ran. I'd slow down through the water stations and say thank you to all the volunteers. (Most of them were young girls from Girls on the Run... adorable.)
Around mile 4, my right foot started going numb. Arg. This happens a lot when I cycle since I have a bulged disc in my back but it's never happened during a run before. Great. (I should probably schedule those cortisone injections I was recommended and have been putting off.) So, I stopped on the side of the road and looked like a total dork doing a little "cat" and "cow" yoga poses. Fixed the problem. I walked a little bit until the pins and needles feeling subsided and started my jog again.
Around mile 7, you cut off through a park to turn around and end up back on the same road going back the other way a little less than a mile down. I figured if I still saw people coming in when I was coming out, that I was doing ok. And I never saw my cousin so I figured that meant she wasn't that far ahead of me. I was feeling pretty good!
At mile 10 I looked at my watch and thought, "If I run really strong this last 5K, I could finish with less than a 3 hour finish time." So I grabbed a clif gel at a water stop and didn't stop running until mile 12 when I caught up to my cousin. I slowed to walk to say hi and see how her race was going and then I lost all momentum. That was ok though. We walked/jogged the last mile and I finished just slightly over 3 hours.
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| Finish line photo!!
I'm feeling really good after this half. I wasn't too sore and I feel like I can definitely do it again... and faster. It gives me a lot of hope for my training schedule and my marathon. This weekend I have a 10 mile run. My cousin has a Spartan Race though so I'm going to go on a 6 mile hike on Saturday and a 10K on Sunday with Cheetah. That should be good enough for a long run. Then next weekend I have the Biggest Loser Half Marathon but I'm supposed to run 15 miles that day. My longest run ever. I'll have to figure out how I'm going to get in an extra 2 miles before or after the race.
Tonight is the Adventure Run. Last one of the season. It's Halloween themed. I'm going to be a very fast zombie. :)
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