Sunday was the big day!! My bebe seester ran her very first half marathon-AND LIVED...AND FINISHED! Can you believe it? I can. I had no doubt in her, she's amazing! Anyone who runs marathons is amazing-but my sister is super amazing wonderful! Are you read for the recap? And AWAAAAYYYY WEEEE GO (because I promised her a super epic-legen-wait for it-DARY post):
mmm salty kisses
Day -1: 'Twas the day before 13.1 and all were asleep-but us. We were up and at 'em bright and early, to get our race stuff together. We had an agenda: t-shirts to make, shorts to buy, lunch to eat, dogs to adopt, soccer games to play and packets to pick up. Somehow we managed to get everything done, except: adopting a dog (another story, another post) and we only half way made our shirts. We ran what felt like several hundred errands Saturday getting ready for the big race. We had ideas of grandeur for our shirts, but we bit off way more than we could chew-and ran out of steam halfway through silkscreening. We only got our names on our shirts, and unfortunately it wasn't up to par to our standards-so we nixed the hilarious saying on the back. At least Em, got her name on her shirt-which I forewarned would be magic on the course. She'd just have to wait to see. We had chipotle for lunch, went to her soccer game and had a family dinner. The night ended with us roasting marshmallows at my mom's.
yeah! she finished!!!
Mile -1: This is perhaps my favorite half marathon, why because it's so close to my home AND ANNDDD it's on MY trail. Say where?! Yeah. So Emmers and I met at mi casa, geared up. We walked a little over a mile to the race start, and got there just on time. I shouldn't set this pattern for her-I am AWFUL about getting to races with enough time to stretch. Less the never, we lined up towards the back. For whatever reason, this race does not have a staggered start for the 5k, Half and Full-and from experience I advised that the rear was going to be best for us so we didn't gun it and run out of gas trying to keep up with 5kers.
family portait
Miles 1-3: Like I said, no staggered start. Even lining up toward the back didn't help at all, it was still wicked thick through the front. Emily and I vowed not wear ipods, so we could chat-and we quickly learned that hanging out all day yesterday tapped our conversation supply. I started making jokes and loudly said "This is like a one mile race right?" "We are almost done right?" to which no one really appreciated. Apparently, runners don't get a sense of a humor until the back miles-when everyone is a little loopy and delirious. The front miles people are still focused and set on PRing. After mile three, we ditched the 5k runners and pushed on. The weather was unseasonably warm, and I had already ditched our matching shirt.
Best Mom Evah
Miles 4-6: The miles were really flying by, Emily stated firmly she will not be walking until mile 6. So we trotted along, and I kept trying to talk it up. She was not having it and really needed to focus-so right around mile 4.5 I turned my iphone speakers on to my running playlist, tucked it back into my pocket-and rocked the muscle butt for the rest of the race. It was quite awesome, I must say. It set an ambiance for the whole race. Other runners would come up and hear Usher or Lil John, stop and pace with us to have a little jam session and move on. We'd jokingly dance and rock out. Since this was an out and back course, at mile five we got to see the leaders speed by us. We screamed out butts off cheering them on. It's always motivating to see the leaders, and that gave us some 'umph' to push on.
Logan had to contain Goliath's excitement...and mine too
Miles 7-9: This is when things started getting pretty tough, but just when Emily was ready to throw up we saw our Mommmm! She's magnificent, ain't she? Always there just when we need her. I tossed her my shirt, and Emily stopped and hugged her. This was on a giant uphill that lied and said was the worst hill of the course. This stint is a square of roads, you turn right and go up turn right again go uphill, turn right and go uphill and finally turn right but go down hill. Logan was at mile 9 with Goliath. There was an aid station right before we met them, and the volunteers were like "dude that dog is REALLY going crazy now!!" hah, it's because he could see us! Logan jogged along with us, I got to run a little with G. We got on that downhill, and got a second wind.
The finish four from L to R: Scott, Eric, Me and Emily
Mile 10-12: We kept seeing this group of guys along the course. Every time we saw them I'd shout "hey we're here! you didn't miss us! don't worry!!" and then they'd go crazy for us. It was hilarious. Emily was about ready to kill me at this point, but if you don't get a little homicidal during a marathon-maybe you aren't pushing yourself very hard. Mile 10 is when the full splits off from the half, and we waved good bye to the really crazy people and started making our way back the finish. We were back on the trail and facing familiarity. Emily almost punched out some super rude running girl, and that was funny. Right before mile 12, a 39 year old man collapsed from cardiac arrest. When we ran by him, he was being resuscitated and honestly-it was really frightening. I won't go into much detail about that, but it totally messed with our heads-especially with all the rumors and talk for the remaining of the race. I could only think about his family waiting for him at the finish line.
Mile 13.1: I made the mistake of telling Emily that after the bridge we'd be at the finish, but there were really two bridges so mentally she was done when there was a little less than half a mile to go. For that she was really ready to kill me, and I allowed her to punch me. It hurt but I think it was worth it. We went under the second bridge, saw the finish line and Emily picked it up. We sprinted the chute and BAM we crossed the finish line AT THE EXACT SAME TIME. How cool is that? Down to the millisecond. This is amazing to me, because this is our chip times-bot the running clock. How cool?
Huge Thanks to the Volunteer of the year, my BFF Megan!!
Mile +1: We walked through the food lines, got our medal and then sat down in the grass. Like I said, it was unseasonably warm-it felt like 60 degrees. Emily's feet were absolutely killing her, likely due to ill-fitting shoes, but I rubbed her feet. We took a million pictures, and then went to breakfast.
Oh and happy Race-a-versary to me! This was the anniversary of my first half marathon!
Gobbler Grind 2009!
