1/2 Marathon!

All the miles.
All the blisters.
All the less than perfect weather. Snow. Wind. Rain. Cold. Hot.
All the less than perfect runs.
All the sore muscles and the sore knee during training.
All the times miles seemed to be too long.
All the times I could have given up.
All the hills.
All the gnats I ended up eating.
All the sunshine.
All the great runs.
All the beautiful days.
All the times when miles flew by.
All the times I went running, despite inclement weather, because I had a goal to reach.

The race was a celebration of perseverance, commitment, and reaching goals.

Back in February, I had started running again, here and there, as my friend Ann from work convinced me it was not too cold to run, if one was dressed properly. Shortly thereafter, I was talking with my brother Matt on the phone, and he asked if I was going to register to run Grandma's Half. I had thought about it before he had mentioned it but hadn't made any decisions; I had come to the conclusion, maybe I'd try to run a 10k. But with his encouragement, I decided to put my name in the lottery. And, I won the lottery and training began.

As my brother Matt and I were busing out to the start line, I felt like 13.1 miles seemed like a really long distance. Matt filled me in on the "ins and outs of races," as I had never ran a race before that day, not even a 5k. While Matt ran the race much faster than I, we had a good time chilling together before the race. Literally, we were "chilling," as the 50 degree weather, wind, and rain made for a balmy start. We were packed in like penguins with all the other thousands of runners trying to stay warm; steam was rolling off the crowd. My cold allergy did not flare up that morning, for which I'm grateful, and once we got running, the temp was just fine.

By mile nine, I was beginning to wonder why people run 1/2 marathons, as I couldn't believe I still had 4.1 miles to go; my energy was fine, and I knew I could continue, but morale was a bit low at that moment.  Thankfully, it was shortly-there-after, my friend, Emily, was at the top of Lemon Drop Hill, and her encouragement gave me an energy boost. In my last mile, I kicked it up a notch; I still felt pretty good. As an additional boost, my parents were cheering for me, as I rounded my final corner. Upon reaching this point, I was actually feeling quite emotional, as I was drawing so close to my goal of completion!!  I'm proud to say that all my long days of training paid off, as I very happily crossed the finish line in Duluth, in 2:16:21.

Matt met me at the finish line, we found the parents, and we all walked two miles back to Matt and Monica's place. On our way there, we got to see the elite marathoners sprint by us, which was pretty cool, considering they ran 26.2 miles in literally minutes more than I ran 1/2 their distance! It was a GREAT day and a good reminder that hard work pays off.

And, I actually love running more now, even more than I did before the race.