Yesterday, I ran the San Diego Run Rock Roll half marathon (my rad friend veronica did too). I spent Friday and Saturday making myself sick with nerves but Sunday morning was pretty calm. We walked from my apartment to the start line at 5:30am and then took off around 7am.
I went through highs and lows throughout the whole 13.1 miles. Miles 1-5 were amazing... "I could do this forever" amazing. 6-7 were "ehhh". 8 (the first time I have ever hit eight miles) felt great. 9 was okay and then 10-13 were just rough. Unbelievably rough. I wasn't sure how I was going to keep running but I knew the only thing worse than continuing on was stopping.
I got a burst of energy from somewhere deep inside on mile 13 and sprinted that last tenth of a mile. That felt pretty fantastic. (And then I spent the next few minutes post race trying to get my bearings on what had just happened.)
But I never walked (though I stopped three times for about 30 seconds to stretch). And I did it solo. Veronica and I "trained" together via twitter and email and were in it together, but we ran at different paces so we ran alone. And we are both pretty excited about the whole thing. (She's excited enough to consider a full. I'm excited enough to try another half.)
My offical chip time was 2:15:19. Considering my goal was just to stay upright, I'm thrilled. And I ran FIVE MILES futher than I have ever ran before.
I'm going to put together a quick "tips and tricks" post on running in general and prepping for a half to post tomorrow.
