Well you will be glad to know that I survived the Half-Marathon! It was one of the coolest days of my life. It started veeerrrryyyy early. We stayed in OKC with John's mom and step-dad for the weekend. We got up at 4 am. Ate a little bit and headed downtown. We waited for almost 45 minutes to go to the bathroom and I missed the gun start! However, since there were 25,000 people all trying to start at the same time I really didn't miss much! To help things go more smoothly they had only a few entrances into the starting lane and finding them at 6:30 in the dark, with 25,000 people was pretty hard! I kept running into barricades. Finally some guy picked me up and threw me over the fence! I was really grateful!
It was a beautiful day! Slight cloud cover and a cool breeze. It was actually chilly at the beginning. I know it sounds crazy, but the first 10 miles were pretty easy. I ran them with no problem. I almost completed 6 miles the first hour! That was putting me actually ahead of schedule! Then I hit mile ten. I guess that was my "wall." It took me a while to finish the last three miles. I really felt like giving up! But I knew I had to finish and finish strong! My time was 2:52:14. My goal was just to finish under 3 hours and I achieved that goal! My time was by no means fast, but I finished!
John, Jason, and David completed the full-marathon in 4:00:12, 4:27:00, and 3:47:00 respectively. They were amazing! Needless to say we were all tired. Last night we all hung out and we are all very sore as well! We had a rotation going to soak and massage our feet!
Would I do it again? Absolutely! In fact I am toying with the idea of running again May 15. But I will have to wait until I can walk normally again before I even think about attempting that!
Finishing was very emotional for me. I had spent weeks doubting if I would even be able to attempt this race. And April 25th was also my due date for my first pregnancy. God had timed it just right for me. He took what would have been one of the saddest days of my life and turned it into one of the greatest! He's good like that!
I hope that my story will encourage you! If you want to give yourself a challenge June 12, 2010 is the First Annual River Country Rush 5k! I hope that you will challenge yourself to run, run/walk, or walk that race! Crossing the finish line is one of the most amazing feelings you will ever have!
