Look what I just did!

Running a half marathon has been on my "To-do" list for a while.  Well, some crazy friends of mine at work convinced me that now was the time.  We started talking about it in October, I signed up in November, and I continued to train for it until my knee went out at the end of December.

Since December, my running has been really limited.  I took a month off after the doctor said I was probably getting a stress fracture from all the running and needed to rest it.  When I finally got running again, it was not often and it was not long.  Nevertheless, I still managed to make it through all 13.1 miles yesterday.

Pre knee injury, I was hoping to make it in under 2 hours.  I went into yesterday's run with a new goals of 1) just finishing and 2) if I actually managed to make it then I wanted to do it in under two and a half hours.  I finished the run in 2 hours and five minutes.  It wasn't pretty- especially mile 10-11.  Mile 1 was pretty much entirely uphill.  My left knee started to bug me at mile 3, my right knee (which up until now had never given me much trouble) started at about mile 5.  By mile 7, I was developing blisters on the bottom of my foot thanks to my orthodics.  By mile 10 I was questioning my sanity in running such a long distance.  By mile 11, I was cursing the never ending hills... but somehow I managed to cross the finish line with a strong final mile.

Though somewhere between mile 10 and 11 I swore I would never do this again, I think that I will try again in another year.  I would really like a stronger finish time.  The best part of this whole thing, though,  was training and running this race with my work buddies- Stephanie, Jen, and Luna.  They pushed me, supported me, and inspired me the entire time!  Until our next race....

Just before the race- my running buddies

We did it!