Half-Marathon

So I realize that this picture looks somewhat morbid, but I borrowed it from facebook and didnt' want to reveal these people's faces w/o their permission. Although ... I realize their names are sprawled across their chests, but oh well. Hopefully they won't mind me borrowing it for these important purposes?
Anyways, I digressed as usual. My half-marathon is exactly 3 weeks away from today! Who would have thought that I would be saying that? After writing this post a few short months ago I really thought there would be no hope that I could accomplish this "bucket list" goal? But now, without jinxing myself, I am this close to completing 13.1 miles! I think the difference this time was that I had someone training for it with me.

I'm not sure I've given the background info. At my highschool ten year reunion me and a few of my classmates decided we would all train for the SA half-marathon in November. It seemed like a great idea at the time since we all had at one point wanted to run one, but never had accountability. Well, secretly I decided that I would begin training for the full marathon since I had plenty of time. It was during that training that I wrote my previous post and was so upset about my injuries. I was pushing myself too hard and running on a treadmill (both bad combinations for me). Well, in order to train properly for the full-marathon I registered for teh half-marthon in NOLA as preparation. I registered before I got injured and figured I would chalk up the money to "a donation to a good cause." Well, I got an email from my sister in law asking if any of the siblings would be interested in training for that exact race! I figured it was meant to be and emailed her back telling her that I was actually already registered. I decided to give running another chance and we both decided that we would do this together.

And it worked!!! Even though she lives 3.5 hours away, I have felt like she is right here holding me accountable the entire time. We do our long runs on Saturdays around the same time so we always text each other after a run to touch base. That was motivation enough for me to get my rear out of bed and get in my long runs. I didn't want to get a text from her saying she ran 5 miles when I had done nothing but sleep!!! I've learned a few things about myself in the process and have applied those trinkets of knowledge to my training plan. I've learned that: I tend to get injured when I run on a treadmill, I need to carry a water bottle with to keep from panicking that I will overheat, I need to stretch, stretch and stretch and that my natural pace isn't fast so why push it? In the past I've always tried to set records and that winded up getting me hurt. So this time, I run about a 10min pace and have the endurance to last the whole time! I am running my last long run today (11 miles) and then will race in 3 weekends. When she and I ran our 10 miles last weekend, we both felt confident that we could have finished the last 3 if we had to, so I feel pretty confident that I am ready for this race.

Grayson and Dax will head down to NOLA to cheer us on and in the spirit of Halloween, we purchased matching orange tanks that we'll wear. We picked orange b/c 1) it's Halloween weekend and 2) we figured G & D could spot us easier and yell really loud for us! I'm already thinking that if this race goes well (which I think it will) that I want to run in the NOLA Mardi Gras rock-n-run in February. So, if anyone's interested in training I'd be up for it. Training with someone else is definitely easier than doing it on your own!