Whoa, this is looooooong overdue! Enjoy this recap of my first ever half marathon on 5/1/10!
I swear, I’ve never before said “winner, winner, chicken dinner” in my life, but I found reason to here. Look, I’m wearing a medal! I’m a winner! It’s a medal that is shaped like a chunk of Wisconsin cheese which is quite fitting since I received it for finishing the Wisconsin Half Marathon. My first half marathon, done. Finito. As in, I will never experience it again. Luckily it was awesome:)
The day was amazing as I predicted. I couldn’t sleep the night before because I was just so excited to get out there and run! And of course all the logistics of the day were running through my head on a reel. The 4:00 am alarm Saturday morning came too quickly, but how could I be upset about it? It was race day! I was going to run my first half marathon and my longest run to date.
After a bit of a SNAFU (again, who says that??) in meeting up with some of my other runner friends to carpool, we finally go to Kenosha, parked, and made our way to the race site.
Training for this race, I ran most of my long run with my running buddy Cheryl. She was such an important part of my training and mental preparation for this race that I had a mini breakdown when we started lining up for the start and Cheryl was no where in sight. Thank goodness we found her right before the gun! I would have been thisclose to quitting my first half marathon had I not found her.
The gun went off and we started running! The race itself was fairly uneventful. You can check out my dailymile race recap for more race-specific details. But here’s the exciting news…..I finished! I ran the whole 13.1 miles! And I ran it in 2 hours and 7 minutes!
My first half marathon? Check. An amazing race? Check. Awesome friends? Check.
It was so great sharing my achievement with so many friends, who all now share the same achievement. For some of my friends such as Cheryl, Lindsey, and Tony, this was their first half marathon. For others, Anne, Rochelle, Tracey, Krista, Joe, and Matt, this was another in a list of many. And for two, Mike and Marty, this was their first full marathon! Congrats to all!
Race Day Signs!
Best day ever. So proud of you! <3 (and I know the rest of the story too — you went on to PR in Napa) shh I'll let you tell them.