In June, Aaron and I moved to North Carolina and we began our training by running up mountains, well not really but sometimes they truly felt like it. We did really well during the summer months but once school and work started, it just seemed so much easier to skip a run here and there. By October, we got so busy that when Saturday hit for a long run, we honestly couldn't force ourselves to run. Two weekends ago we ran our longest run of the training.. 10 miles.. still 3.1 more to actually finish a 1/2 marathon. We were both so sore for the next days, I still wasn't convinced that I was actually going to be able to finish this race, but it was here, whether I wanted it to be or not.
So on Friday, we loaded everything in car and started the 5 1/2 hour drive to Savannah, GA. Adam, Sybil, and Rachel met us there. After way too much time in the car, I'm usually good for about 30 minutes, we finally arrived at the Expo. We picked up our race number, swag bag, t-shirt, and went on a search for anything else free we could get. I ended up with a free t-shirt and Aaron got 2 free bandanas. The rest of the crew were there as well, so we wandered around for a while together. In our wandering, we came across a booth that was giving away free t-shirts for anyone who could do 25 "burpies". They looked extremely difficult, but Adam and Sybil were up for the challenge.
After the Expo we carbed up for dinner, picked out our clothes for the race, and headed to bed. We left the hotel at 4:45 Saturday morning headed to the race. After several hours of standing around in the cold it was time to head to our corrals. Rachel and I were in the same corral so we chatted with people and tried to stay as warm as possible before we actually started. Now the race starts at 8:00 but you are in different corrals based on your predicted ending time. Rachel and I were in corral 11 so we started about 12 minutes after the first corral started. To sum it all up, I had a blast, Savannah is a beautiful city to run through, but by mile 7 or 8 I was in serious pain. My knees were hurting like they had never hurt before and I had a horrible cramp in the arch of my right foot (which still seems to be there). The only way to get over the pain was to finish the race. I'll let the pictures tell the rest of the story. *If you want to check out all of the photos go to www.marathonfoto.com and follow the directions.
This is Rachel sprinting to the finish line. Look at her go.
Adam is in the yellow.
Sybil running like the wind.
Aaron looking cool and confident.
Rachel and I cheesing it for the camera.
Proof that I did actually finish. I ran the 1/2 in 2:22:59.
We all finished!!!
Photo in front of a beautiful fountain after the race.
So excited. "Check out our medals"
After we got back to the hotel, showered, and relaxed our EXTREMELY SORE muscles, we headed to lunch in downtown Savannah. We figured since we had all just run 13.1 miles we could consume as much food as possible. And that is exactly what we did. We ate at Kayak Kafe. It was delicious.
We spent a little while walking around, exploring, and eating some ice cream, before we headed back to the car to do a little sightseeing via car. It is much easier on the legs. The rest of the trip was spent watching the Alabama/LSU game and consuming as much pizza as possible. I had a great time and really enjoyed spending some quality time with my family.
"Would I do it again?" Only if everyone else in the family was going to run too. For me I've accomplished my goal and I've got the sticker to prove it. :) Until next time...
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