NEVER SAY NEVER

If you had asked me a yr ago, heck 8 months ago if I would ever consider doing a half marathon I might have laughed at you.  There has never been any interest on my part of doing anything over a 10k and to be honest I was not 100% sure I would ever want to do a 10k.  Why on earth would anyone want to run for more then an hr straight?  Sure I was in awe of those did choose to run these longer distances but I also thought they were a bit crazy.  Which is why what I am about to say is so damn insane.  Since my last post in here in Nov. I have built my mileage up and done not one 10k but two!  That's not all though, I just finished my first half marathon last weekend!  GASP!  The race took me 2hrs and 48 min. and I will not lie my thoughts from a yr ago still stand true because I am in awe of what I was able to get this body to do and yet I find myself thinking about how crazy I was to even think I wanted to try.

I would have been fine living in my little bubble of short distances for a long time if it was not for the fact that my online facebook group had decided Myrtle Beach Diva Half Marathon would be great place to have a RMM meet up.  A huge girls weekend at the beach, who would be stupid enough to pass that up?  Apparently not me!  I sat at my dinning room table with Candice and we hesitantly registered.  I remember being so nervous, 13.1 miles is no small feet and I honestly was not sure I could do it.  With the winter months already upon me I knew I was going to have to train for this thing all on the dreadmill.  There was no way in hell I was going to run outside in the cold, ice and snow.  I stuck to my two days a week 5:30am stride classes where I worked on speed.  On Sunday's after church I would get in the long runs, each week just hoping that I could get in a half mile to a mile farther then the week before.  I was real bad at doing any cross training but when I did get some in I usually spent my time in the pool.   Each week I was progressing and I was just fine in my little bubble in the gym until I found out a good portion of my friends were doing the Shamrock 10k.   St. Patricks day is just not my thing.  I was never the wake up at the ass crack to drink green beer sort of girl.  I just grew up not celebrating it much.  Which is why when all my local running moms wanted to do it I was hesitant.  I was not sure I wanted my first 10k to be on a holiday that I was just not that into.  Not only that we are in MI... hello girls you do realize in MI it could snow on St. Patricks day right?   I gave in and registered for the damn thing with the thought in the back of my mind that if the weather sucks I am bailing.  (turns out the weather was awesome... thank goodness).  The week before the race I was sicker then a dog. 103 fever, chills, body aches... it was awful.  My fever broke just 3 days before the race but I had not run in a week and I felt real weak.  I was fortunate enough to have my friend Kaci step up and tell me she would race with me.  I was lucky she was there because she is the ONLY reason that race was tolerable.  The medication I was on from being sick messed with my stomach and I thought from mile three on that I was going to puke my way to the finish line.  Fortunately I was able to finish the race without any vomit.  I will say this though even though I did push myself as hard as I could have pushed that day so I was very proud of myself.   Once I had finished the Shamrock 10k I knew it was time to sign up for the race I had been longing to do with my son since the previous yr.  The Martian Marathon.  Cooper did the kids marathon where he had to run 25 miles before race day and finish his marathon by running the last 1.2 on race day and I did the 10k.  Cooper hauled ass to the finish line, I can not believe how fast my kid is.  He lined up in the second wave with all the 4th graders.  The 4th graders started 2 min after the 5th graders and would you believe he beat the majority of the 5th graders to the finish line.  Ryan and I were so in awe of how fast he is that we seriously spend an hr one night looking at all the race photos and we counted the kids who crossed the finish line before him.  Cooper was the 24th kid to cross the line.  24 out of 1,500 children.  WOWZA.  I had a pretty strong showing myself, I felt much stronger then the last 10k and I was bound and determined to get a PR which I did... easily.  At the end I still had a ton of energy and felt like I could have kept going.  A huge improvement from the previous race.  I stuck with my Diva Half training the best that I could but sometimes life got in the way.  The closer to the race date I got, the harder and more challenging training got for me.  A late may race is tricky to train for when you have a husband and two out of three kids who play baseball, never mind all the end of the yr school projects, presentations, field trips etc.  Life was getting in the way for sure.  The week before the half I did not even run once, talk about a taper week!  I also found the long runs hard, I know, I know (insert cranky voice) "they are supposed to be hard, if it was not hard then everyone would do it."  but my word they were harder then I expected and to be honest I just did not enjoy them.  Training was beginning to feel like a job to me.   I missed just getting out of the house for a run simply because I felt like it.  About a month or so ago I confessed to my husband that I did not think long distance running was for me.  I assured him that I was not going to quit but doubted that I would sign up for another one.  Now that the race is over... I don't know where I stand on that, I could see myself doing more but I could also see myself not doing any more and just running because I love running.   Only time will tell but I have a feeling it is similar to having a baby, in time you forget how awful the pain was and you get preg. again.

Even though the race is over I still think to myself  "13.1 miles... girl do you understand just how far that is?  Do you realize how long you just ran?  You are one crazy bitch."  My thoughts are then followed by something like "how on earth did I just pull that off without so much as a blister.  Gosh I feel like a bad ass, I am all over this thing we call 13.1"   I kinda had a moment after the race where I patted myself on the back (not literally I would have looked stupid) but in my mind I recalled that in less then a yr ago I broke my toe and took over two months off running.  Many people would have given up, used that as an excuse to stop running but not me, I pushed on and on until I surpassed anything I had ever accomplished before I broke my toe.  I am pretty proud of myself and am learning to never say never.