37 Things: Walk/Jog a Half Marathon

I could not have asked for a more perfect spring day for our half marathon yesterday. The sun was out, the sky was a perfect aqua blue without a single cloud in the sky, and many of the cherry trees were still in blossom.

This was one of the hardest things I have ever pushed myself to do. Ever.

I have been working out 3-4 times a week in preparation for this for the past 4 months and was thinking I am getting fairly prepared. But a few weeks ago I pulled a muscle in my calf and in the last week was having serious doubts about being run ready and that made for a very tough run yesterday.

Not tough because of the running. Sure, that was hard. But what was tough for me was starting out slowly and walking nearly 2 miles to warm up before even doing any running. Most of the runners start bam! running hard right out of the gate. And there was me and Trevor, walking at the wee end of the pack, taking it easy.

This was very excruciating for me to do. I am not a big sports person, but I do have a strong competitive streak. Seeing people race past me and having to just grin and bear it is tough. But luckily Trevor offered to go the whole way with me to make sure I could do it. Which was awfully nice of him because his other 2 half marathons he ran ended up being 30 and 45 minutes faster than what we did yesterday. He normally can't run with me because his stride is so long, so I really wish I had someone with a similar pace to train with. Running and talking to someone the whole time made it a lot easier as he gave me a lot of encouragement and pep talks the whole way. My goal was to come in under 3 hours; we came in at 2:53:14. The fun thing about the run was all the people watching. People of all shapes and sizes come out to run the marathon and half marathon.

I am in some serious sore pain today. My hip joints feel wonky and my calves are stiff and it is a little awkward to walk. I ended up with a couple of blood blisters under 2 toenails. Also, one toenail is halfway ripped out so I am pretty sure that is going to fall out in the next day or two. I just put a Band-aid around it--an out of sight out of mind sort of thing. I am hoping by the end of the week that I will be able to go out for a light run or at least put in 20 minutes on the elliptical trainer at the gym. I am pleased that I finished, but ready to get back to training to start preparing for the Narrows Half Marathon in 3 months!

Definitely the hardest thing on my list of 37 Things I Want to do Before I Turn 38.

Now I am going to go sit on the couch and do some needle felting and watch a movie or something and try not to move too much today!