13.1 The Thanksgiving Point Half Marathon

This morning I did the Thanksgiving Point Half Marathon (13.1 miles). I left the house at 6:40 am and found snow on the ground! Although it was pretty cold, the adrenaline and excitement kept me warm! Oh and by the way, I dyed my hair brown. So it is me, even though it might not look like me!

I'm so lucky to have an excellent sports photographer to take pictures of the race to help me remember. Running all those miles feels like a foggy daze in my mind. Thanks Luke for the awesome pictures and all the support!

My girls and my mom came and cheered me on too! It was great to see them there. I made sure Luke dressed the girls in snow clothes because I knew it would be cold. Luckily the snow melted mostly by the time I finished the race.

The first 9 miles just flew by! The course took us through the Thanksgiving Point Gardens and Golf course. It was beautiful, even though the grass and flowers were snow covered! For the first 3 miles of the race it actually snowed right on us. It was really beautiful and peaceful.

The last 3 miles were definitely the hardest. At about mile 11 I felt super tired and my body just wanted to quit. I was jogging so slowly and I wanted to just stop and walk the rest of the way to the finish line, but I persevered. I refused to stop and walk. I guess at some point it really becomes a mental game to push yourself to finish.

Seeing that finish line was such a good feeling! I had set a goal to finish within 2 and half hours, but I really wanted to shoot for 2 and a quarter. All the hills on the golf course really slowed my pace and got to me, but I was able to finish in 2:27, so I feel good about that.

I'm relieved it's all over. I enjoyed the training and the race, but I think I'll take a break for a little while. Maybe take some workout classes, yoga, things like that. I want to do it again next year though, so if anyone's interested....let me know!

I just checked my official time online and it's actually 2 hours 26 minutes 40 seconds. I finished 96th out of 141 women in my age category 25 - 29. Overall I finished 676th. I believe there were 1000 runners. The overall winner finished in 1 hour 10 minutes. Holy Cow that's fast!

That averages out at about a 5 minute mile! My average for the race is about an 11 minute mile.