HALF MARATHON

Since I currently don't have anything exciting to talk about, lets go back several weeks. Well, several months. Back in October or November, a friend said we should sign up for a half marathon together, so we did. She told me I had better not back out. I swore I wouldn't. Fast forward to January. I asked my friend how training was going. She informed me she would be running 6 miles that weekend, so I did what any logical person would do: I ran 6.5 miles. Every week, I pushed myself about 1.25 miles further. When I had completed 12.5 miles, I sent my friend another text inquiring about her training. "Um... I haven't been running." WHAT?! "I'm pregnant." SERIOUSLY?! I was excited for her, but sad I would be running alone. With the race being less than a month away, I pushed myself harder than ever. Ran 15 miles without stopping, which was a couple miles further than necessary. Clearly I am a bit excessive.
Race Day. March 2nd. I was beyond nervous. I was dropped off at the finishing area and rode the buses to the starting line. I had an hour to kill, so I struck up conversation with two awesome ladies. One was running her third half marathon. The other was running her eighth. The butterflies in my stomach tried to tell me to use the bathroom before starting, but the lines were 50 people long. Pass. Besides, I knew adrenaline would carry me the whole way without a problem. We got into places and the race started. It was insane. Thousands of runners racing as a pack. I jockeyed for position ahead of the 9:00 min/mile pacer. I felt great. About 2 miles in, the need to go to the bathroom intensified. I kept an eye out for port-o-potties, but nada. When I finally spotted some, it was 3.5 miles into the race and the line was 2 deep. No way; it would kill my pace. So I kept running. Before I knew it, I was passing my family at mile 4.5. The kids were yelling out encouragement which was awesome. With that lift, I ran another mile and a half before I realized just how badly I had to go. At mile 6, I finally got my break. The line was 4 deep, but I didn't care. I HAD to finish, so I HAD to go to the bathroom. The wait was FOREVER. I just watched as the racers I had passed slid by me. Once I was out of the port-o-potty, I took off as hard as I could. Bad idea. My intercostal muscles (right under the ribs) started pulling. I knew I couldn't run fast enough to make up my lost time. With a gloom and doom attitude, I continued on. I realized that I was nearing one of the girls I had befriended. When I was along side her, we offered each other much needed encouragement. An unspoken agreement was made at that moment to continue running together for the last 7 miles of the race. I couldn't have done it without her. When I hit my wall at mile 10, she told me that she knew I had it in me to finish. 100 yards from the finish, we said goodbye and she sped off at her top speed. I dug as deep as I could and followed behind her as close as possible. We finished within 4 seconds of one another. I ran 13.1 miles in 2:05:21, just over 5 minutes slower than my goal pace of sub 2:00:00. I kick myself about the bathroom incident. If I had been smart about the race, I would have gone beforehand and would have finished within my goal time. Oh well. For my first half marathon, I think I did pretty dang well. The race was more emotionally exhausting than physically exhausting, but I want to do it again.