I ran a Half Marathon today. Holy crap, I ran a half marathon today. I’ve got to say this is one of the proudest days of my life to date. A year ago when I started my weight loss journey I never could have imagined that I would run more than 10km, so to have just completed a 10k and then this 21.1km run is almost unbelievable! I’m going to talk through pictures a bit on this one.
It was a beautiful morning in Canmore, a tad on the chilly side, but sunny and full of potential. Just like Jill and I. We posed for some glamor shots and made sure our race bibs were on (moved them to our thighs after this picture was taken) and all of a sudden it was time to start.
We have no starting pictures, or at least I don’t as my bubbly little Mama was in charge of our camera and as I told my friend Jen yesterday, she is no good at photography. I give my mom a hard time about everything, in a loving daughter way, so for her to then meet us across the parking lot, to get a starting photo, and for me to yell “Mom your camera is OFF” just made me laugh. After that it seems she figured out the on button and how to work the rest of the camera machine.
We weren’t sure if Mike (Jill’s Fiance) and my Mom would know where to find us on the run, but they appeared out of no where it seemed and somehow knew exactly when we would be coming up to a good place for them to snap some quick photos of us. They would yell encouraging words and we needed no cues to act like the Ridiculously Photogenic Runner and plaster smiles on our faces. No we actually probably were smiling most of the time, for real it was a fabulous day any how it was kind of cool to have paparazzi for a day.
We ran amazing well, with no issues until we couldn’t find the 12km marker. Now it’s not that we couldn’t find it because we went of track or anything but 10 and 11 km’s seemed extra close together and after running for what felt like 30 minutes we finally came across the 12km mark. It had to have been at least 2km between 11 and 12. We went up a hill and then another hill and then there was this dragging flat spot and then another hill and then a slight down hill and on and on. I’m just glad they had Gatorade at the 12km cause I was gonna hurt someone. This might have been when I asked Jill “who talked me into this race?” and then we laughed and kept running.
We managed to keep running our 10 minutes and walking a 1 until we got to Spray Lakes trail or about 16km. This is when we decided that we were running about as fast as we could walk uphill so why not walk the hills, then run on the flat or tiny downhills. We did this until could see the finish line and said ok lets run it in.
There was no way I could sprint it in to the finish line today. I was spent. We did pick our speed up as much as we could but I was already so happy with finishing this race that I didn’t care to push it to the max. My knees are sore (Jill’s too) and a tad swollen, Jill has a nasty blister in between some toes and I think my foot is a bit swollen as well, but who cares “enjoy your pain, you earned it” as quoted on one of the km markers during the race.
Over all today was awesome. We had a ton of support from all our friends and family. I also keep calling this my first Half Marathon as I am about to sign up for my 2nd-Harvest Half Marathon, to support my friend and fellow blogger Kelsey. I know I couldn’t have gotten through today with out Jill so I have to support Kelsey and celebrate in her first Half Marathon victory.
nikkiinhighgear 