DC Ranch half marathon

It's taken me a while but I'm finally posting pictures of my half marathon I ran on 3/5/11. I didn't forget - I've just been busy, but mostly our laptop is broken again. Boo! So I am posting from Andrew's work laptop.

So here is my cousin, Elizabeth, and me before the race.

(Sorry - a little fuzzy.)

Do we look nervous?

I look so nerdy when I run like in this picture.

This is us literally a few steps into the race.

That's probably why we look so good.

After the race Andrew showed me this picture. The race had a different computer moniter set up for each of the events where you can look someone up and it would tell you their time. My name was up for a long time. They must have punched in my running #123 as a test. Pretty cool.

So here's me at the finish.

What's that? You can't see me?

Is this better?

Andrew did the best he could with two wiggly kids

and no idea when I would finish.

I actually passed those two girls in front of me before the finish line.

This picture captures something of an emotional moment for me. You see, I ran the first 8 miles with Liz and it was fast and there were a lot of difficult hills. After that I fell back because honestly, Liz is much faster than me. Since the first half was so fast I had a very difficult time on the second half. I felt like I already spent the best of me so I had to pull all this energy out of nowhere. That's when long-distance running is a mind game. You know how they say running is 90% mental and 10% fitness. I don't know how accurate that is but there's truth in it. It was hard! The rest of the race was very hard. Fortunately I had enough energy to sprint really fast at the end - which is my favorite part of a race. It feels so good to finish a race strong. I felt great - until I stopped. Then my body went into a little shock. I was trying to catch my breath and I just wanted to cry. It wasn't an emotional thing, it was physical. I felt so alone in the world at that time even though there were people all around me. I just wanted to be with my husband and hear him tell me how proud he was of me and how great I did. As soon as I saw him I let myself cry a little. I was so physically overwhelmed. He told me I did great and just hugged me and I felt much better. I might have only run 13.1 miles but to me it was a huge physical and mental accomplishment. This will be a race I will never forget. In this picture my eyes are still a little wet from crying.

The times are posted here.

Liz finished in 1:56:49

I finished in 2:01:49

( Next time I want to run it in under 2 hours.)

Here is the most supportive husband in the world!

He wants to make it a new tradition to do this picture after all of my races. He's telling me I'm #1. We did this here too.

The funny thing is this race was kind of a big deal for me

but the rest of the day was just normal.

Life goes on.

p.s. Up to this point, this half marathon is the longest I've ever run . . . but not for forever :)