D and I made it through the half marathon yesterday! :) I wasn't too worried about finishing, but since I hadn't run more than 3 miles in the past two weeks, and because of my slightly injured foot, it had crossed my mind. Luckily, I didn't feel anything at all from my foot--whew, what a relief. The only downside of this race was that it was freezing! Seriously so cold. It was 28 degrees at the start, and on tv they said it felt like 16. The wind cut right through you. Brr.
Miles 1-3 were easy peasy. Our pace was slow because of the crowd, but we felt good. [Side note: we started with the group trying to pace 9:30--how were there so many people walking in front of us?? I don't care at all if people want to walk, but it is really frustrating when you can't even run at your pace because you are weaving around people walking down the center of the road. :-| ] Around mile 4, we heard our names, and saw my parents waving frantically at us. My mom even ran down the sidewalk with us for a few seconds because she was so excited that they had found us. :) Immediately after that, we ran into our friend Si who was running the full marathon. We ran with her for a couple miles (note: these were our fastest miles!) until we got separated. That brought us to about mile 6. At mile 7, the half marathon route broke off from the full, so the crowd thinned out quite a bit. I felt pretty great until just after mile 8, when my freezing hands were starting to really bother me. Not a huge deal, but I could tell I was starting to get uncomfortable.
Around mile 10, my calves started to really tighten up. I've never had this happen before I think it was because of the cold--I was wearing capris, so my calves were exposed. This tightening lasted until the end, and made the finish very unpleasant. D was a champ though, and continuously kept trying to motivate me. Around mile 12.5 there was a huge crowd, which pumped me up a bit for the finish line. We finished with a time of 2:08:52, which was a little slower than my time last year, but I was still pretty happy. D's parents and my parents both came to watch, so we immediately found them, then went and ate a delicious breakfast. :)
Here we after the finish. We are standing next to the giant pile of clothes that had been picked up near the start. Since we were both freezing, we contemplated going through the pile for warm clothes, but decided against it. :)
Today I've been relaxing for most of the day. I have a little bit of work to do before tomorrow morning, but we are going to go to Buffalo Wild Wings to watch a football game and celebrate our half (D's first!). :)
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