Sunday I ran the St. Louis Half marathon with my sister, Marye, my neighbors, Andrea & Mike, and Mike's sister, Emily. I will be quick to admit that I didn't train as much as I probably should have- we ran that 10k in September, but other than that, I haven't been super motivated to exercise. I'll blame part of it on winter, and part of it on the fact that I was still nursing and really didn't have a need for exercising. So, this race was my motivation.
To prepare, I aimed to run 3x a week, at least 2 miles a day (no comment), and on the weekends, I tried to get in a longer run of 5-10 miles. Any runner can tell you that this was not really a sound training program, but with work, a one year old, and preparing for the class I'm teaching this summer, I didn't do a good job of finding the time. But that's ok. I know myself as a runner- and I knew that I could finish the race- one way or another.
The first picture is before the race, before it started raining. Once we got off the metro, the rain started. Not too heavy, but rain nonetheless. The race itself went well; the course was well marked with a time clock at each mile. In places I thought it was a bit narrow, but the race thinned as we progressed. Water and Gatorade were provided approx. every 2 miles, and some energy gel was available after mile 8. My strategy was to try and hit 8:00 min each mile, and barring the first two miles (which I started a bit slow) I pretty much made my goal. I even had some energy for a kick at the end! ha! My previous (and only other attempt) at a 1/2 resulted in 1:50:52, 2 years ago as I was training for the Chicago Marathon. Sunday resulted in 1:46:59! Yea! I think it may be my new favorite race...Columbia half anyone?
1 comment:
I would, but I'm pretty sure that I can't keep up with you. ;) We were suppose to run this together, but then you went all fast on me haha my 2 hours wasn't good enough! We need to work on my speed with distance!
Post a Comment