I did it! WE did it! It was great and I could not have done it without my team, my friends, and my family. Thank you for your support, your donations and your cheers.
I'm not an athlete so the thought of training for this was daunting and had I not committed my running to something more than myself I never would have accomplished this. Below is my version of the day and the race and some photos and the video Jon took right before I took off to the finish line:
We started out piling everyone (Jon and the kids, myself, sister and brother-in-law) into the car at 5:30 to head down to the beach to be at the start by 6. Of course with 7,000 + several thousand volunteers heading there at the same time the streets were pretty crowded. We (Kim and Becky) made it to 39th and Pacific Ave to wait for our other running partner Lisa. While Lisa was waiting in the line for the bathrooms we bumped into our friends Belinda and John. I couldn't believe I saw people I knew among so many thousands of people! By 6:55 Lisa was out of the bathrooms and we made it to our spot at the start. Our coral was a bit further back than we probably should have started as the entire race we passed people rather than them passing us making for tight travel for 13.1 miles. I have to say that besides it being the longest run I've ever done it truly felt long. There were so many people to look at wearing silly costumes, and we covered some serious ground too. From beach houses to tree lined road, a military base on the ocean (Fort Story) to the boardwalk on the beach.
Along the course I ran into a couple people that I knew which was pretty cool. Jon and the kids met us around mile two and tried to follow us as far as they could until the road closed. Along the stretch where there was nothing but a canopy of trees there were some DJ trucks pumping music to keep us going. The first one we came up to was playing YMCA...... so imagine thousands of people running singing and doing the YMCA together..... it was so cool to watch from behind as I was in the middle of the crowd!
The next part of the race that really sticks out in my mind was coming off the base and around the curve onto the boardwalk hearing the song "lets see how far we've come" by Matchbox 20 blaring..... this made us all sing as were at mile 12 by now our farthest run to date and made us pick up the pace. The next point was approaching the finish. Kim and Lisa had already picked up the pace and had gone ahead and I threw in the kick and my feet start go. I could feel my stride was huge and I was flying by people...... then I looked up at the finish line and it was still sooooo far away I knew I couldn't keep it up that long. So I slowed it down a bit and saw Jon and the kids in the crowd then kicked it back into high gear caught up with Kim and crossed the line at 2:22:27.
It was fun. I'm proud of myself. Sad that I lost so much sleep over it the night before as it was the unknown that makes me nervous and the logistics that I go over and over in my head. Because I'd done 12.26 miles before, the .75 yesterday was not such a huge deal. My legs feel good today. My quads are sore and I know it's from the final kick I gave and it feels good. No knee pain! I will do another half marathon. I will continue volunteering with DetermiNation and helping others make their miles more meaningful. SHAM ROCK ON!
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