My First Half Marathon - 13.1 Miles

Today, I ran my first Half Marathon. Months of training came down to this one day and the picture above can pretty much tell the story. It was F.R.E.E.Z.I.N.G, literally. I've run in heat, rain, thunderstorms, snow, and even cold weather ... but I've never run 13.1 miles in 20 degree weather. This race was a huge mix of physical and mental ability.

My husband and I started the race bundled up. I started off wearing a hat, scarf, short sleeve dri-fit shirt, long sleeve dri-fit shirt, a fleece, lined leather gloves, long winter running tights, socks and shoes. I finished still wearing all of that! The only thing I changed was my gloves because the first pair got sweaty and my fingers refroze so I had to switch to the back up pair that I had in my pocket. Brrr.

Speaking of freezing ... my fingers and toes were frozen at the start of the race. They finally thawed out around mile two. My toes were fine from then on, but my fingers refroze as we ran down Riverside since it runs along the Arkansas River. You could definitely feel a significant temperature drop while running by the river.

Play-by-Play:

• Mile 2 - Like I said before, things were starting to thaw out. Also around mile 2, both of the IT bands in my knees started to hurt. I've had trouble with these in the past, but not usually that early in a race. They hurt off and on the rest of the race.
• Mile 3 - I could feel a blister forming on my left foot even though I took every precaution to prevent this from happening, ugh.
• Mile 4 - We stopped so my husband could take a quick potty break.
• Mile 6 - We saw this guy! Can you tell who he is?

• Mile 7 - We had a layer of frost over the back of our shoulders. My husband also had snot crystals frozen in his mustache. Impressive.
• Mile 8 - I told my husband that we only had 5 miles to go and then we could do nothing the rest of the day ... except watch our energetic kids! My fingers froze for the third time.
• Mile 9 - I surpassed the farthest distance I had ever run at one time (15K just 4 weeks ago).
• Mile 10 - I'm debating which one was harder -  this freezing run or giving birth three times.
• Mile 11 - I was delirious. We were walking up a steep hill when my husband started doing the Sasquatch walk to stretch out his legs. I lost it. I was laughing so hard ... from him, from the ridiculous pain in my legs, from the fact that my fingers were still frozen ... everything was funny at that point. While laughing, I blew snot out my nose and it started to freeze on my lip. This was insane!
• Mile 12 - A.L.M.O.S.T. Done! My husband was a huge cheerleader for me at this point. I was excited to finish, but I was cold and my IT bands were done. While going down our last hill, my knees almost gave out. I had to stop and walk until we were on level ground again. He continued to encourage me and we finished strong.
• Mile 13.1 - D.O.N.E! Thank God! Our unoffical time was 2:53 - leaving room for improvement.

After the race, we got our medals and warm plastic tarps, and we headed to the food tent. We ate a little bit and bundled up to sit down, to stretch, and to wait on my brother to finish the marathon. While waiting, we got to congratulate various friends as they finished the race. What a blessing!

By the way, my brother finished in 3:43, which was 30 minutes better than his previous best time. Way to go! Check out his icicle stache below.

Overall, I'm certainly glad that's over. I said around mile 8 that I would never run a half again. I'm fairly certain now, 10 hours later, that I will run it again. However, I will make sure that the weather will be warmer next time.

Hebrews 12:1 - "...let us throw off everything that hinders (aka bad weather) ... And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us."