The Gusher Half Marathon

On May 1st, I completed my first half marathon. That's 13.1 miles and , for me, 3 hours and 5 minutes of running. It was pretty much the hardest thing I've ever done, but it was a lot of fun!

I started running at the end of February just to get in shape. Not long after, we decided to follow the training schedule to get us ready for the half marathon. We didn't really commit to the marathon for a long time, but we used the training schedule to keep us on a regular running regimine. We ran 4 times a week. Our week day runs were either 3-4 miles each day, and our Saturday runs were the long runs. We started with 4 miles and added a mile each Saturday. It got pretty rough at times, but we all did really good and were very dedicated to accomplishing this! At the end of March, we all signed up for the race, and we were pumped!

May 1st finally came around. I woke up around 5:15 am to get some breakfast and get ready. When I drove over to meet up with my friends, it was drizziling.. and it drizzled until right before the race started. This wetness mixed with the heat made it MISERABLE to run in! The air was so thick that at some points it was hard for me to breathe. But depsite all of that.. I did finish the race! Now for some picture of the race:

My running buddies: Top Row - Lauren, Phyllis and Steven

Front Row - Me and Rebekah

We are all nice and clean here... didn't last long!
Ready to run!
Can you find me?

This is around mile 2...

Still around mile 2... looking pretty happy at this point. I was not so excited later on that day!

Me and Cindy running on (I don't run with Cindy during the week, but she's a church friend I met up with... I sort of left my running buddies in the dust!)

Running down MLK - that's one of Cindy's kids. They met up with us during the race to take pictures and cheer her on!

Crockett Street - maybe around mile 5 or 6

Back on MLK - mile 10. That guy next to us was the full marathon winner. While we were on mile 10, he was at mile 22 or so... he totally lapped us! He went twice as far in a WAY shorter amount of time...

One more lap around Lamar.... this is around mile 11.5 and this is around the time I thought my feet were going to fall off!!
Runing towards the finish line - my friends Heather and Cindy ran it in with me!!

And I'm DONE!!

Getting my medal

WOOHOO!

Me and Cody!
Finally found my running buddies! I lost them after mile 2. I never saw them again, but they made it to the end together!

Way to go guys!

I'm a marathon runner!!

I'm still not sure how I managed to run for 3 hours... I could definitely think of some better ways to spend three hours, but this was a fune experience! I can't wait until the next one!!