we did it!

Last weekend me and my close girlfriends ran the Girlfriends Half Marathon! I have lots of pictures due to my friend Marnee's son who took my camera and followed us through the whole race, thanks Wade! It was a miracle to be running as most of us suffered from injuries during our training and all of us had to be super creative and dedicated to train at all with work, kids, and commitments it is so difficult to figure out how and when to get away multiple times a week to try to run. Especially when running in itself is hard. I was especially happy to be there, I love to have a goal and I am pretty internally competitive so it is good for me to push myself past what I think I can do. I also had a pretty serious (not easy to fix) injury that kept me from running for 3 weeks and only got me to pain-free running about 2 weeks before the race. God is good.

The girls... Kristi, Melody, Marnee and Me (missing Michelle who was out due to a hip injury)
Me and Mel, I convinced her to run with me instead of walk/running as she planned up until 2 weeks before the race. I am sure she will never run a half marathon again. Sorry Mel.

Pre-race prayer...we prayed against injury and that in the end to glorify God. It was a good day to glorify the Lord.

I think we are at about 6 miles here, we were obviously still feeling pretty good, excited that we made it this far and clueless to how much harder the second half was going to be.

Kristi and Marnee on a water break.. not sure where this is in the race as we split up at about 5 miles. Looks like their 6 mile mark. Go girls!

At the very end! I ran the entire 13.1 miles with no walking (except to drink so I did not spill it all over myself). The course had a few surprise hills between mile 10 and 11 and between mile 11 and 12, seriously I was cursing the course at that point. I am no fan of hills but at the end, give me a break! I finished in 2 hours and 40 mins, about a 12:15 min mile pace. Clearly not a speedy one but so happy to run the whole way. My ankle did not really bother me at all and my joints were ok too. My muscles ached and I was exhausted but I was so happy to see that my body was not as old and broken as I had been feeling a few weeks prior to the big day.

Happy Kristi, totally surprised herself and did awesome, running more than she walked. Way to go Kristi!!!!

Marnee, me and Kristi, at the end, after some water and some food and some stretching. Happy to be done, happy to have gone so far. Mel is missing, but she did awesome, running straight to 10 miles then running and walking and running to the end. Her body freaked out with a bit a shock at the end and she was not up for pictures. You girls did great. Thanks for keeping me going, I could not have done it without you. Now what is next. I don't like the thought of running in the dark or in the rain so I am not sure I will be running any races til spring. But we will see. I still need to drop 15 to 20 so you do what you need to do. Go girlfriends!!!