My first half marathon

Forgive me if I ramble incoherently, but I wanted to get these thoughts down before the feeling of the moment leaves me... 

Race start time was 7:30, got up at my usual time, 4:15 with 3 rounds of snooze. The morning started off badly, my mom came by when I was snoozing and said, "GET UP!" If you follow my posts on the boards, you'll know that I get up at 4:15 5 days a week and have been doing it for 2 years and haven't ever failed to make it out of bed, so it was totally unnecessary and annoying that mom was kicking me out of bed. Basically was trying to duplicate my normal morning routine, except that we were sleeping at my parent's condo because of the closer proximity to the race start. 

Did not do a warm up at all. I was just getting into the corral when the gun sounded. My running partner took off on her own after about 1K. I expected to run most of the race by myself but that happened earlier than I expected. 

I did the first 10K split in 1:10:54, a ridiculously slow pace for me. 

note to ZIRCADIA - the Creed songs on my playlist, although with inspiring lyrics, were all slow and contributed to the slow 10K! 

At ~12K, the turning point (it was an out and back course), something really amazing and unexpected happened. My SIL had a sign with my name on it! She also had a sign for my other SIL. It really, really perked me up when I was flagging. Soon after, one of my big 'power songs' came on and it picked me up even more. 

I meant to run with the 2:15 pace bunny and finally caught up with the group around 15K. I decided to keep her in sight for the rest of the race. Sometimes I was a few metres ahead, sometimes behind. 

I crossed the finish line in 2:12:55.4, and there was a long walk through to get to the chip return/water station. We Are The Champions was playing and I had a little cry. 

Unfortunately my mp3 player got jostled off me in the post-race somewhere. 

I got a huge blister. A year of running, 2 20K training runs, not so much as a tiny chafe but come race day ..ow! 

Russell Watson - Faith of the Heart (the song that always gets me through the tough races) 

It's been a long road 
Getting from there to here 
It's been a long time 
But my time is finally near 

And I can feel the change in the wind right now 
Nothing's in my way 
And they're not gonna hold me down no more 
No they're not gonna hold me down 

'Cause I've got faith of the heart 
I'm going where my heart will take me 
I've got faith to believe 
I can do anything 
I've got strength of the soul 
And no one's gonna bend or break me 
I can reach any star 
I've got faith, I’ve got faith, faith of the heart 

It's been a long night 
Trying to find my way 
Been through the darkness 
Now I've finally have my day 

And I will see my dream come alive at last 
I will touch the sky 
And they're not gonna hold me down no more 
No they're not gonna change my mind 

'Cause I've got faith of the heart 
I'm going where my heart will take me 
I've got faith to believe 
I can do anything 
I've got strength of the soul 
And no one's gonna bend or break me 
I can reach any star 
I've got faith, faith of the heart 

I've known the wind so cold, and seen the darkest days. 
But now the winds I feel, are only winds of change. 
I've been through the fire and I've been through the rain. 
But I'll be fine. 

Cause I've got faith of the heart 
I'm going where my heart will take me 
I've got faith to believe 
I can do anything 
I've got strength of the soul 
And no one's gonna bend or break me 
I can reach any star 
I've got faith 

I've got faith of the heart. 
I'm going where my heart will take me. 
I've got strength of the soul. 
And no one's gonna bend or break me. 
I can reach any star. 
I've got faith, I've got faith, faith of the heart. 

It's been a long road. 

Persechini 10K Run/Walkathon race report

time: 1:03:21 ugh! 
course: 3 giant rolling hills 

"Recreational" runners/walkers did an 8.5km route. 

It turns out that to bump the distance to an even 10K, all "elite" runners run an extra lap around the mall. 
Since this race is a charity fun run, there are no timing chips. I figured you didn't have to do anything special to qualify as an "elite" runner. I was wearing my shirt that says, In my dreams I am a Kenyan and a lady came up and said, with a shirt like yours, you should be with the elite runners. So my shirt kind of came true, just for this race, I got to go in the elite starting corral with only about 20 other people and pretend I was a Kenyan! 

So we started first to do the extra mall lap and theoretically all the runners should have been out of the way when the walkers started, but I was juuuuuuuuuust coming up behind them when they started, so I had to get through the slowest walkers..and dogs..and strollers...and children. 

I did that starting mall lap WAY too fast, 1.something km in something like 8 minutes and went pretty slow the rest of the way. 

But overall, not too bad for a fun run. 

Sporting Life 10K race report

This race was definitely easier than I anticipated. I was thinking that there would be brutal downhills where I'd feel out of control (hate that, give me hills any day!) Chip time was 56:17, well ahead of my anticipated time of 1:00+. 

Things to note: 

- I slept well last night. Usually the night before I am nervous/excited and end up tossing and turning. 
- Curse whoever neglected to put a zip tie and safety pins in my race kit. 
- After 29 years and 322 days, I used a porta-potty. I was hoping I would remain a porta-potty virgin FOREVER. 
- I bumped into the former head trainer from my gym, who I always thought was a elite super fast runner. I checked the stats and I finished a minute ahead of her!

I leave you with a lovely picture of me sprinting across the finish line, courtesy of my dad. 

Old PR DEMOLISHED

I ran the Bay and Back 5K in 28:44.8 today, completely demolishing my previous PR of 31:08. I think my next goal is to run a similar time and just have it HURT LESS! 

The best part was when I muscled up a steep hill in the 2nd half and actually hearing someone say, "wow, look at her go!"

10K!!

In 1:16:57. Only walking a couple of times when there were huge icy patches. Not breaking any land speed records here, but much improved considering under a year ago I could hardly run for 5 minutes!