Lost Dutchman's Half Marathon

This weekend was the Lost Dutchman Half Marathon. I decided quite last minute (a few weeks ago, the day before the prices went up) to sign up for the race and give it a shot. I have only ran two other half marathons and my fastest time prior to this race was 2 hours, 16 minutes, and some change. I didn't really expect to beat that, but I wanted to finish my first long distance race (since having Oliver exactly 3 months before the race) and feel good about myself. Well... I did it!

Here I am with my favorite cheer team (minus my ultimate favorite cheer captain who was taking the picture). Oliver and Melanie are sharing a seat and keeping each other nice and warm.Here I am running to the finish (I had just pasted mile 13, and had the last .1 mile to go) P.S. I passed that man right after this picture was taken. I don't think I passed the girl, but I was close.

So, here is my run down. I started feel really good. We were running into the sun for the first 2 miles, then turned and the sun was beaming on the left side of us. Then around Mile 4.5 we turned and headed toward the sun again. I was still feeling really good, and being passed like crazy... good grief! ha ha! It was when I made that turn, that the first place runner passed me, headed the OTHER direction! wow! I cheered him on, but I think he was too much "in the zone" to have noticed. I was following and pacing myself with a gal in a pink running shirt and black head band and kept thinking I'd know when the turn around point is because I'd see her coming the other direction. Eventually, I turned around and started heading away from the sun... and down hill! (That felt really good!). At this point, I actually passed my pink shirt pacer. I was really feeling good. I had not stopped running at all until mile 10, where I walked through the water station, just long enough to get some water (I had been drinking my sports drink and wanted to get some of the sugary taste out of my mouth). I started running again, and still was excited and feeling good. At this point, I was at the turn around for the 10K race, and I was passing 10kers. That was kind of fun. Ironically, I was also still passing half marathon walkers that were only 3.1 miles into the race.

At mile 11, I pulled my phone out and called Brandon to tell him I was almost done. It was right after I hung up the phone from calling him that I had an "emergency situation". At mile 12 I ended up making a long pit stop, sigh... But then I ran my last 1.1 miles super strong. I ended up making a personal record of 2 hours, 11 minutes, and 49 seconds. I wouldn't change a thing in my running... and the stop was out of my control, so I'm really happy. I have been looking at the numbers over and over (because I'm an engineer, and I over analyze everything) and you can really tell from my pace break downs that I was really quite consistently around 9:30 min/mile. But then you look at the overall pace, at just over 10 min/mil... that tells you how much my stop effected my time. But, as I said, I still ran strong, so I'm happy with that part (and if you are wondering, yes, I'm trying to talk myself into being happy with my time even though I had to stop for MINUTES! But I am in no way upset with how I ran the race)

When I registered for this race, I was really worried about how boring it may be for the rest of my family. They are always such loyal fans and come to all my events, but I know that the longer races mean more down time for them. But, after the race, I uploaded the pictures and found these:

Turns out, they had a blast at the park, then enjoyed the blow up obstacle course bounce house.

And while they waited for me, they took turns pointing out everyone that was wearing an orange running shirt... even the men. Melanie kept laughing at daddy and telling him "no, mommy is a girl, not a boy". "No, that's not mommy, her number is up high". "No, mommy is wearing a belt, like this". And when she found me, I hear "MOMMY!!!!" And a lot of giggles from her and Noelle (who also was screaming "mommy!".) It makes me smile and want to cry at the same time when I hear them cheering me on.

The rest of the day, both girls kept talking about how mom ran in a race, and how she was "super fast". :) I couldn't ask for better fans. They make my love for running mean something more than just a crazy hobby or obsession... It means I'm teaching them the value of setting goals, and following through... and for a brief moment, they make me feel like a super hero. It's kind of an emotional thing.