Nike Women's Half Marathon - April 28, 2013

Wow.  What an incredible day!  

I can honestly say I will never ever be an elite runner, and I will most certainly ALWAYS be a slow runner or a run/walker.  But today I feel like a rockstar.

Today I finished my second ever half marathon!   And I beat my goal.  And I PR'd.  And I feel like I have more in the tank!  I really do feel like a rockstar.

Way back in 2005, I was about 80 lbs. heavier than I am now and I walked a half-marathon in Virginia Beach.  The Rock N Roll Half was an incredible race and felt like a wonderful achievement.  It was hot and really humid and I was hurting for DAYS after!  I barely finished.  I can remember turning the corner at mile 11 and Team in Training staff were there....and I cried.  I cried almost the whole way to the finish, a straight shot down the boardwalk.  My ankles and legs hurt so freakin bad.  I don't know how I even finished - in fact, if it weren't for those TNT staffers that day who finished with me (one on each side) I know I wouldn't have done it.  I squeaked across the finish line in a crazy 4:32:55.   And I was so proud!  I finished it!

Today....we had a 4 hour course limit.  I had a great plan to run it that mid-way through training was cut short by an injury.  I knew I could walk this if I had to and if I ran a tiny bit it would be more than before.  We had checkpoints we had to pass by certain times or we would be asked to get on a slow bus and transported to the finish on a shorter route...

I did it!  I finished in 3:21:35.  That is a whole 1 hour, 11 minutes and 20 seconds faster!!   SMASHED!  I can't imagine how much faster it would be if I wasn't hurting!  I was sooo excited that I completely forgot to take a finisher picture!

I ran about 5 miles of the race!!

I was NEVER in danger of falling below the pace and getting on the slow bus.

And I finished FAR ahead of the 4 hour time limit!

I ran in honor of Alex Nieves, a young man who has beaten his leukemia and has returned to college this year and is on the Salisbury Lacrosse team.  And I ran in memory of my Gramma May.  Gramma lost her battle with leukemia in 1998 and I still miss her!  I had their names on my jersey (on my shoulders) and on my bib with the blood droplets.    Check out my sparkle skirt!

I trained for this, I was on track to run about 3/4 of the course with some walk breaks on it before I got hurt.  After I rest and let this hip heal I will be back on track and get this record broken too!

I trained with Team in Training and I am so excited!  I raised $2730 for cancer research and patient care.  I met some incredible people who supported me and got me to this point!  Of the 15,000 runners in this half, 2300 were from Team in Training.  We raised over 6 million dollars!

I had a fabulous team, teammates and a couple of coaches (I switched from the run team to the walk team after my injury) and they really just rock!

Coach Sara convinced me that I could make the time limits even walking the whole thing.