Oh how things have changed. It was much harder to get into running this time around (people, ladies don't lie when they say their bodies change after having a baby! or three!) and I felt much slower. BUT, I had some incredible friends who were in it with me. These two ladies had never run a half marathon before, so we were all learning and training from the beginning together. Through the past six months, we've experienced several highs and lows together, and had some of the cheapest therapy around while taking it to the pavement at 5am on Saturday mornings and 9pm on Mondays, Tuesdays, and/or Thursdays. These two are like sisters to me in this time of life, and I am so grateful that we have been able to reach this goal together.
Here's Erin with her bib number. This was at the Expo the day before the race. We drove out to San Antonio on Saturday, checked into our hotel, and walked over to the Alamodome where the Expo was held to check in for the race. There were all sorts of vendors at the Expo, selling all manner of running/walking/biking gear as well as so many other fitness goods. After walking around the Expo for a bit, we went back to the hotel to freshen up before going to an early dinner at The Cheesecake Factory. It was then back to the hotel for an early bedtime.
This is Jessica. This was her first night away from her little boy, who will turn one this week! She accomplished two very major - and very different - milestones this weekend!
And then there's me. (Not gonna lie... I was excited to have a 'girls weekend')
We all laid out our clothes for the next morning, went through a mental checklist of what we needed to do after waking up, and went backwards on a timeline from the start of the race to see when we needed to wake up and when we needed to leave to go to the start. 5:45am was the time we set our alarms to wake us, and we had to laugh because it was "so late" for us to wake up in order to run together!
We had some shirts made for us, just to have a bit of fun. All three of us have major sweet tooths (
should that be teeth?), so it seemed appropriate to have these little slogans on our shirts. Honestly, I'd run for all three of these things! Ha!
Here we are, 6:45am on Sunday, ready to walk out to our corral in the starting area. We were in corral 25 -- they had organized groups into corrals to start in waves so it wasn't just a mad stampede at the beginning, and to spread the runners out. There were over 30,000 participants in this race, which was both a full and half marathon.
The start line was directly out the doors of our hotel. Nice! However, we had to walk about six blocks to get to our corral. Oh well!
It took us about 30 minutes to actually cross the start line after the initial gun went off at 7:30am to begin the race. Two hours and forty-four minutes and 13.41 miles later (according to my RunKeeper app on my iPhone) we crossed the finish line! It was a very HOT morning by running standards. The starting temperature outside was in the mid-sixties, and when we finished the announcer said something about it being 76 degrees. When you run, your body "reads" the external temperature as twenty degrees warmer than it actually is... Plus, factor in about 60% humidity... It wasn't easy. All three of us had moments were we struggled, but thankfully we were in it together and took turns cheering each other on.
This is one heavy medal!! I am so proud of Erin, Jess and myself for accomplishing this goal of finishing a half marathon together! We've already signed up for another one -- March 4, 2012 will find us running the streets of New Orleans! Hopefully we'll have cooler weather, but I know that's a gamble at that time of year just as it is here in Texas in early November (apparently). At any rate, I've got some great running buddies who make this all worthwhile.
