All at Once: October 2014

Number 7 Half Marathon Complete!! And I did it! I wasn't feeling too good about this one, but I finished and my time was even better than I expected. Sarah and I adopted the saying, "Forward is our pace" Ha!

Sarah and I decided that we wanted to run a half marathon this fall so we decided on the Rock N' Rock Series in St. Louis on October 19th. We signed up back in June (I believe) and it came up really fast. I started training back in July, but I wouldn't say I was serious with my training this time. I did get up to running 10 miles and longer runs on the weekend with 2-3 other runs during the week. It was tough training in the heat of summer, but helped once the cooler temps came around.

We drove over Saturday afternoon, went to the expo to pick up our packet, ate dinner, and then went to bed early. We had a convenient location, within walking distance of the start and finish line. Our wake-up call was at 5:30 am.

My definition of carb-loading= cheese, spinach and mushroom calzone

Hello Arch!

Start Line

Before race. Looking pretty good for 7 am.

Let's just say this wasn't an easy course! Lots of hills. It was a different kind of hilly compared to Iroquois Park. There were hills throughout the race and they were long steady inclines. I felt pretty good the first 6-7 miles and stayed with Sarah. Around mile 8, I was not feeling too hot. I started to get cramps and felt nauseous. At that point Sarah and I parted ways. I pushed myself the last few miles and I felt my body was giving out on me, with my hips, and especially my right knee killing. I actually took a short potty break, so considering my time, I did pretty well. I was quite relieved to cross that finish line with the official time of 2:04:54 (pace 9:30).

My Splits:
Mile 1: 9:22
Mile 2: 9:22
Mile 3: 9:17
Mile 4: 9:07
Mile 5: 9:08
Mile 6: 8:57
Mile 7: 9:11
Mile 8: 9:33
Mile 9: 9:43
Mile 10: 9:29
Mile 11: 10:27
Mile 12: 10:12
Mile 13: 9:45

As you can see, I was struggling the last few miles, but I made it!