Half Marathon results are in!

Just wanted to let everyone know that I finished my first half marathon today! The race started at 6:30 so we had to be up by 5. I was up by 4 and was too pumped up to sleep. There were some train delays that were kind of stressful, but I made it in time.

It was a beautiful morning...clear skies and no humidity and fairly cool. I've been doing my marathon training with walk breaks where I run 6 mins and walk 1 min. This is a great strategy for the full marathon, but this morning I felt great, and didn't want to walk because everyone around me was just running the whole time and I wanted to keep up. I was way under my 9 min/mile pace for the first few miles, and wanted to be cautious about going to fast. But I just kept running with everyone and just judging my pace by how I felt.

The last 6 miles of the race were along lake shore drive which has no shade. The sun was getting hotter and I was really feeling it by then, and around about mile 10 I took my first walk break at a gatorade stop. I took another around mile 12 so I could have a strong finish. While I didn't exactly have a strong finish, I did finish with a personally great time. My goal was to break 2 hours, and my official time was 1:53:05.

I also learned how the half and the full marathon are completely different races. The half marathon is just a much faster pace and can be run more like a fast race. But with the marathon you have to have more of a strategy so you can have an optimal time. My goal is to do the marathon in under 4 hours on Oct. 22. I will have to run it exactly like my training style with the run-walks.

You can check out the race results here if you want to. It shows some other stats as well as my time. Just type my number in at the bottom: 1446

http://www.onlineraceresultsb.com/race/view_race.php?race_id=3063

If you look at the results, it is funny to think that when I was nearing mile 8, the leaders were crossing the finish line! Regan said that the winner Brian Sell just trotted across the finish line as perky as can be...like he could have run the whole thing again! His time was 1:04:25 (4:55 per mile)

Here are some pictures:Me before the start of the race

Me full of energy almost to mile 5

Me crossing the finish line blurry-eyed and unaware of where Regan was taking the picture.

Just posing with my medal that says I finished.

It was a total blast and I hope to do it again next year!