13.1

This was it! The Cleveland Half Marathon race weekend was here! Which meant my Mom, Dad, Sister and Niece were in town. Training had been going well, that is until the injury. But I was trying to think positively and just enjoy my visitors, the weekend, and the race.

Mom, Julie, and Madison drove up on Thursday. We had a late dinner, where I made salmon and just hung out at home after their long trip.

Dad flew in Friday afternoon and we hit up the race Expo right away. The big surprise was when Julie announced she was going to go look for her name on the list of runners. What? That didn't make sense since she was in town to cheer us on. Little did we know that she had registered without us knowing and would be running too! I was in shock! She had kept it a secret, with Mom who would watch Madison during the run, and hadn't trained much but was going to do what she could. Wow!! So it would be Dad and his girls. How cool!

We toured the race expo, bought new running gear, tried on headbands and hats, and looked at future race schedules. There is just something exciting about these events. All the people, the excitement, anticipation... it is special and I love that we all share it with our Dad.
 
Friday and Saturday were filled with activity. We carbo-loaded for the race at Geraci's and Hot Sauce Williams. We went to quaint little towns of Olmstead Falls (where Jared ran into VT player Lee Suggs!) and Chagrin Falls to look at quilt stores for Mom. We drove the race route and were a little concerned about some of the areas we would be running through and at one point, thought it included running by the beach!

Race day was beautiful, although a little hot. We were up bright and early, with the run starting at 7am. Obviously we are nuts... who looks this happy before running 13.1 miles?

Jared took Mom and Madison to breakfast at the Four Seasons while we were running. The route was too spread out for them to see us at multiple spots along the race so they had time to eat and catch us at the finish line. Mimosas anyone? Mom looks so happy. I love that my husband can take care of things when I'm not around.

I tried to keep to my race plan, which was still a run 5/walk 1. I felt torn holding Dad back and worrying about Julie pushing herself too much but I tried my best to just enjoy the race and listen to my body. I could hear Jared in my head saying not to hurt myself. In hindsight I think I could've gone faster in the beginning but it might have burned me out too fast. I had to leave Julie around mile 5 and Dad would run up with me, then back with Jules to make sure we were A-ok through the shady area of town. (Which, you never would've known during the race there were so many people.)

Running with the sun bearing down on you is not fun and it is very different than all my treadmill training. I was doing a great job with a PR for my 10 miles and then it hit me. After mile 11.5 I was spent. My hands were swollen and it totally freaked me out. My ankle was hurting a lot too. The steep hill right before the 10th mile, which Dad ran up with no problem, had just killed me. So I had to do more walking than I would've liked and at a pretty slow pace.

But I was close, oh so close to my goal. At two hours, thirty-six minutes later Dad and I crossed the finish line. He grabbed my hand for the run down the finish line. It is a great memory. When I look at these photos, it is crazy. Who is this smiley runner girl? I had trained for this, enjoyed this, and completed this. And it was so fun to do with my Dad and sister. Who kicked some major butt for not training. That girl has a natural runner in her!

We did it! Dad and I even signed up for next year. May 19, 2013 here we come! This time, I'm running the whole thing.