Half Marathon

Don't worry, I didn't forget to post about the Rock n Roll Chicago Half Marathon! It was August 2nd in downtown Chicago. We left our house at 5am and made the trip down there. The gun sounded at 6:30am, but they had different corrals according to your projected finish time that started a couple minutes in between eachother so I didn't actually start running until 6:55am. The weather was PERFECT and I felt great. I was so thankful that my husband (and of course our son), his dad, my parents and sister and my aunt and uncle made the trip to see me run. It was so exciting to run the track and see my family members cheering me on. I also, was so touched by the sense of pride I saw in my husband's face each time I ran passed him. It really kept me going throughout the race.

I really did feel good the first 2/3 of the race. I would walk the water stops, but besides that, I ran most of it. About mile 10, I decided to walk for a minute because my legs were so tired, but it actually hurt MORE to walk. It is a weird feeling when you run that far where you almost feel like you are numb from the waist down, and it's harder to get one foot in front of the other while walking, so that did keep me running.

I crossed the finish line in 2 hours, 22 minutes and 45 seconds. My goal was to do it in under 2:30, so I was really happy with my time being that it's my first one. I got my big honkin' metal, as the Rock n Roll Series likes to call them, which I am very proud of. I finished in 8890th place out of 14453 finishers.

There is another Rock n Roll half marathon here in Phoenix in January that Greg and I are considering doing together. I thought after I finished this one, I would want to do a full marathon, but I remember thinking after crossing the finish line that I could not imagine only being half way there! So for now, I'll stick with half marathons!