OC Half Marathon

Another fitness goal complete! On May 3rd I competed in my second half marathon with my seriously awesome fiance, friends I've known since high school and their also incredibly awesome partners. To be completely honest, I had no clue how this race was going to go. Throughout my training I dealt with shin splints, IT band pain, a freak spider bite, foot pain, a complete change in my gait AND the ever present running cramps. I say this not to ask for your pity but to say that HOLY HECK, I went through all that stuff and still came out with a four minute PR which means that I should really start to try and believe in myself. Now to recap!

Chris and I drove down Friday night after picking up my race tank from Niki (aka the #bestrunningpartnerever) and crashed pretty quickly. On Saturday we slept in, went for our quick 2mi shake out run on the beach (first pic) and overall felt pretty darn good. We had brunch and then met up with everyone at the expo to pick up our bibs, shirts and other miscellaneous stuff you get at races. We had dinner at a delicious italian restaurant and then all went our separate ways to try and get to bed early for our 4AM wake-up call.

The morning of the race I was freaking out a bit. Actually freaking out a lot. I was so immensely worried that I would slow Chris down, or deal with running cramps in the first mile or deal with random ITB pain. I am SO thankful for this man. This was his first race longer than a 5k and here I was freaking out and he was the epitome of calm. Our training had been all over the place due to my random ailments, him getting a cold and him also dealing with some shin splints. I was NOT feeling prepared. But the gun went off and off we went!

I took this pic right around mile 3. This was a HUGE race compared to all the ones I've done in the past. There were over 22,000 runners [insert wide eyed emoji]. At first it was a little difficult trying to dodge everyone who had a different pace but I think around mile 8 or 9 I just kept thinking, 'this is awesome, look at all these totally different people crushing their goals.'

We didn't quite pace ourselves the way I had planned to or expected to but I was genuinely just so excited that I was running without pain that I told myself to just keep running and deal with the change in pace when I started to slow down. I know we definitely started to slow down a bit at mile 10 which I had planned on. I made sure we both focused on our form and took in as much fuel as we needed/could. We finished in 2:20...4 minutes faster than my first one despite all our setbacks =).

After the race we took our obligatory group picture and hobbled around a bit ;). I was surprised by how different the pain was post-race. Yes it hurt, you do not run 13.1 miles and not hurt afterwards but after my first one I very much felt that if I did not keep moving I would fall over. After this one there was pain but getting in and out of the car was okay and we were fine at brunch and somewhat okay at the beach later.

Such a kickass group of people. I am so incredibly proud of all of them for doing a fantastic job on their first HALF.

 

These two girls are one in a million. They endlessly listen to me ramble on about fitness stuff and are willing to take a risk on training advice that I offer. They both are so strong and I LOVE that they #runlikeagirl. Congrats you two, I can't wait for the next one ;)!