life's healthy journeys

Hard work does pay off

27 Mar 2010 1 Comment

by hmurray in Half Marathon Training, Races Tags: Half Marathon, race, Running

Here it is – took me a few days to post this since I was waiting on a picture and for the official stats.

I finally did it, ran an official half marathon , and all the hard work paid off with a finishing time approximately 11 minutes faster than my practice half marathon I ran back in January.

Friday evening was crazy and I didn’t get to relax and fell asleep later than planned. Which kind of made me a little upset because I wanted to relax and have everything to go a certain way in order to have the best possible run. I forgot how things don’t always works out as planned, especially when you have kids, and you just have to move on. So finally by almost 10pm I finally fell asleep. My alarm went off at 4:30am and I quickly prepared myself to leave the house by 5:30am. I layered up since it was only 34 degrees outside and I didn’t want to freeze. (I ended up taking my outer layer off and returning it to the car before the race.) Breakfast was a bowl of Steel cut oats with some protein powder added in and a banana. I also filled my CamelBak with Gatorade/water mixture and packed 2 power bars for later. One of which I ate when I arrived and the other after I finished the race.

I finally parked around 6:15am after needing to get gas in the car and putting the wrong destination in the GPS. Parking was easy since not too many other runners had arrived yet.  I was glad I arrived early though, because suddenly around 6:30 it started to get really crazy. I found a corner and began to stretch. I tried to kept myself moving until the race started between going outside in the cold, coming back into the warmth and going to the bathroom. I must have been nervous and used the bathroom about 5 times, each time the line got longer as the start of the race came closer. I went out to line up about 5 minutes before the gun went off and unfortunately was stuck near the back. I planned on being out earlier but the bathroom line held me up.

Once the gun went off it took about 1min of jogging/walking to actually cross the starting line due to congestion. I found out later there was over 1100 runners. Shortly after the race started, I got a glimpse of all the runners in front of me and it was an amazing site. At that moment my eyes started to tear up as I thought to myself, “This is so amazing and I can’t believe I am actually doing this.” (And I’m not one to get very emotional.) I quickly focused on the race again. For the first couple miles it was very crowded and hard to pass anyone, but I weaved my way in and out at a comfortable pace. The road was under construction so we were forced to use one lane until finally it opened up and I was able to get into a nice groove.

My mind kept switching between thoughts of how crazy I am for taking this on and how amazing this experience is, but I tried to stay focused on my running. This got harder as the race went on and the more exhausted I became. Throughout the race I passed several people and few passed me, but I was okay with this. I ran on my toes on the uphills, this made it easier and helped me pass others. I started out using the downhills as recovery but after about mile 7 (the first mile marker I noticed) I started just letting myself go as I ran down them and in return passed even more people.  At this point, we ran a stretch that was part of the Greenway, which really killed me, with what seemed like some never ending hills. But I made it though and once the course started to loop back along familiar road, my energy was renewed and I knew I could finish what I had started. About a mile from the finish line, this women yelled “Come on you can do it, only a mile left.” It made me angry at first, I’d rather not know where I am unless I can see the finish line, but then I decided to pick up my speed since 1 mile is nothing compared to the 12 I had already ran. And it paid off, I had an amazing finish and I don’t think I would have been under the 2 hour mark if it weren’t for that woman.

After the race I grabbed up a free banana and a bottled water for recovery. I had to keep moving or my legs would start to tight up. I loved using my “new” camelbak and was relieved it didn’t weigh me down. I barely felt the extra weight and it was nice to have a drink whenever I needed it to keep me hydrated.

It truly was an amazing experience and hope to run another by fall. I’d like to thank my wonderful DP for all his support during my training and handling of the kids. I couldn’t have accomplished this without him. I’d like to also thank Meg for being such an inspiration and encouraging me to sign up for this half marathon.

Morning before the half

After finishing the half

Here’s my final stats. As you can notice my chip time was over a minute faster than the gun time. – it took that long to cross the starting line.

Place  Name          Chip Time  Gun Time  Diff   Pace
502    Heidi Murray  1:58:35    1:59:50   01:14  9:09/M

Here's the cool unexpected medal I received for finishing.  The shirt, my number, and a 13.1 sticker for my car