The Half and so on.

I did it! Yeah! I have always wanted to do one of these and I'm so glad that I did.  It was a blast! Running is a funny sport.  I never considered my self a competitive person...and outwardly I don't think I appear competitive - but it's those on going conversations that go on in my head (does that happen to anyone else?) Now in reality would I run a person off the road and into a canal who is trying to pass me? Never.   But do I think about it...heck yes I do. There were two ladies who I had passed and just kept trying to re-pass me (is that a word? re-pass?) gah! anyways - I left one in the dust as a porto-john and the other was like a gazelle in the last mile. She deserved to beat me. She knows how to stride out...I do not.  But I did learn a few valuable lessons along the way.

1. NEVER wear gray running shorts for a race.  Ummm...even if the lady didn't pee her pants it sure looked like it by mile 3.  Poor woman. Everytime I passed...and re-passed her I kept thinking about Billy Madison "You're not cool unless you pee your pants".  Who wants to be the pee-pee lady? Rule of thumb: always wear black.

2. Carbo-loading works.  It's amazing.

3. Gu is better when sucked down and not left to linger in the mouth

All in all it was a great race.  All of my training totally paid off.  By the end of the race I felt like I could still go more which I think is pretty awesome.  These are my stats:

13.1 miles - 2hours5minutes - 9.3 avg. pace - 203rd place (out of 380)

This race totally made me believe that I could do a full marathon.  So January 28th it is.  I'm going to run the Desert Classic in Surprise AND my runny buddy is going to do it too! yeah! Running for 4 + hours is so much more appealing when you have someone to talk to.

Okay. Now here are the pictures. enjoy!

 

Me before the race - awesome morning hair, right?

 

My family with me at the finish

 

This one is for my mom. I did it!

This race was very kid friendly.  They had a lot of blow up jumpy things and face painting.  Emmie got a cupcake. precious.

Prime was all about the free popcorn and Jamba Juice.  Emmie liked it too. They think races are cool. 

p.s. so since you are sitting here and reading about running, you want to hear about my latest injury scare?

okay...so the marathon is in January right? Right.  Our goal is to run in under 4 hours.  That means that we need to pick up our pace.  How do we do that? Cross train, right? Right.  So I go and get my bike (which I haven't ridden in 5+ years) from my parent's garage.  The tires need some work so until then I thought I could just ride my buddies bike.  Well my buddy is way taller than me and maybe I should have thought about that before mounting the bike and riding away...well within the first mile I have a little accident. I don't even know how to explain what happened but the just is that I needed to stop fast, couldn't touch the ground and the bike hit me hard on my rear end...ouch. Anyways I precede to ride for 8 more miles (because I'm stupid) and come home with a VERY sore bum bum. 

So that whole day I'm sore. Then the Next day (which is today) I wake up and am crying I'm in so much pain.  I'm able to roll myself out of bed and have to wobble fast to the bathroom so I can throw up because the pain is so bad.  Needless to say I think my tailbone is broken. So I go and get x-rays. Nope. Just a bruise.  BRUISE?? WHAT?? That is one heck of a bruise.  The aftermath of childbirth didn't even hurt this bad.  So apparently that area is pretty wicked when bruised...beware. 

BUT the awesome news about all of this is that it is not broken.  I should be back to normal in a week or so. yeah!

Thanks for reading if you are still sitting there.  I'm going to go get some ice now.