Half Marathon

I am not a runner.

I think in order to qualify as "a runner" you actually need to enjoy running.

I do not.

But finishing... well, that's addictive.

Last weekend was the Des Moines Half Marathon and my beloved sister-in-law Jennie and I decided months ago to run it together. The first night I went running I wondered to myself why I was doing this to myself. Training for a race is so time consuming and it's hard to stay motivated. At the time I had a few extra baby pounds to loose, so that was my incentive, but those came off and I still had to run the darn thing.

I really had to ask myself why I was doing this. Why take the time away from my family, put the pounding on my body and force myself into this. Every now and then I enjoy running, but so often my runs are consumed by mental battles just to keep myself going. And during training it's just stressful about how and when I'm going to get my runs in, and having to put myself through what I like to call, "Death by Treadmill". About three weeks before the race I had the most awful "long run". I did 7 miles at about a 9 min. per mile pace. Instead of being proud of myself for running 7 miles, all I could do was berate myself for not going further and not going faster. But by the time I got home I was just disgusted with myself for another reason; because I couldn't even celebrate my accomplishments, I just had to rag on myself about what I didn't do. See what I mean, I'm a total mental patient when it comes to running. After that I made changes to my training and it went much smoother.

But here's what I figured out. I was doing this for several reasons. #1 - Because my previous race experience was so good. Not to be over dramatic, but running the Dam to Dam changed my life. #2 - I'd told Jennie I would, and I wasn't going to go back on it. #3 - I was doing it because it was hard. How many times do we do things that are really hard for us? Life is pretty cushy most of the time. Seldom do I have to go outside my comfort zone. When I sub for a step class, that is definitely out of my comfort zone, but I like it. When things are really hard, it's usually just easier to not do them, but if we never push ourselves how do we know what we like and what we don't? How do we learn what we are capable of, if we never give ourselves the opportunity to find out. The desire to do something that was HARD was a real motivating factor for me in this race.

And it was rough going. From the start I had problems. First of all, my best running buddy in the whole wide world, Lora, is very pregnant and couldn't run with me. Oh, how I missed her. Then, I battled ingrown toenails, sore knees, sciatic nerve trouble, and then 2 1/2 weeks before the race I got mastitis. For you lucky souls who've never had this, count your blessings. This is the 4th time I have had this and every time I am wiped out for a full 6 days. I NEVER want to have this EVER again. It was the sickest and most miserable I have ever been. By the time I was up for running again, the race was a week and a half away and my confidence in my ability to finish the race was shot. But my crazy-ultra-marathon-running-friend Ashley talked me down from my metaphorical ledge and got me to the start line.

So race morning was cold, 38 degrees, but gorgeous out the whole time. There were tons of people but we found our pace group (2:10) and waited for the gun. Having a pace group is awesome. You just follow someone holding a sign (the whole race!) with the time you want to finish in. Can you imagine running a marathon holding a sign up the whole way? I didn't have a goal time, so I thought I'd start with 2:10 and I might have to fall back to 2:20. I did 12.4 in 2:10, so I knew I'd be somewhere around there. But we stayed with our pace group pretty well.

I really appreciate the people who show up to cheer on the runners, and some of their signs were awesome. My favorites:

"Toenails are Overrated"

"Meth Kills, Use Speed"

"Your body is a liar, You can do this"

"26.2 because 26.3 would be crazy"

Jennie and I didn't stop running the entire race. I was very proud of us for that. We were almost done and came around the corner and someone said to us, "You've got about 3 more blocks to go" and I looked up and I could see the big FINISH sign. What a feeling! Then about a block before the finish line our kids and husbands were cheering us on. And ya know, months of stress and preparation and pain were suddenly all worth it.

Will I do it again? Yes, I will.

Right after the finish line was TONS and TONS of food. We loaded down our plates and our kids had a picnic in right there in downtown Des Moines.

And here is my cutie pie - I guess he wasn't too impressed.

My race stats: I finished in 2:11:34 which is a 10:03 per mile pace.

And here's something ironic. For weeks I've been irritated that all of my work outs have needed to be runs, and Monday I went into the gym and felt lost because I didn't know what to do. Ha!