13.1!

WE DID IT!!

I've been bad about posting lately because, despite the fact that I ran a half marathon last weekend, I'm still very lazy.

Nellie and I both finished the race in under two hours (me, barely; Nellie, faster).  It was super fun, actually, although we both questioned it right up until the start and felt ridiculously tired and sore afterwards.  We timed our meals really well the day before/morning of, which was great.  We were sitting having breakfast at around 6am on race day and Nellie said, "I can't believe we're doing this by choice...humans are so weird."  It's SO true!  Why do we do these things?  There are plenty of other ways to be healthy and get exercise.

Anyway, it doesn't matter.  I definitely am glad that I did an actual training program, because I felt totally fine until around mile 7 or 8.  At the halfway point as I turned around, I was even able to coherently talk to Mike (Nellie's husband), who, with my parents, did an AWESOME job zooming around to various points on the course to cheer us on (even taking time to stop for coffee, my dad is always quick to add).

I had set myself a super duper easily attainable goal of under a 10-minute/mile average.  By the time I got to 5 miles, I knew I was going to beat two hours.  There was a little timer thing there, and I was WAY ahead of pace.  At that point, I knew that if I just kept it up I'd be fine.

Right after I finished -- going into the tent for snacks!

It's an interesting psychological thing that goes on in long runs like that.  Physiological too.  You just kind of shut down, and your body goes into survival mode, not releasing any fluids or anything.  I didn't really feel like I was sweating that much during the race.  At the finish, it was very emotional and awesome.  I got all choked up when I crossed the line, and found out later that Nellie had a similar response when she finished.  It's a pretty big accomplishment!

I spoke to someone a couple years ago who told me she wanted to train for a marathon.  I asked her if she'd done any long distance runs like that before, a half marathon or anything.  She said no, but "nobody does half marathons.  They don't make a big deal out of it."  So not true haha!

Nellie also said, after the race, "we did it!  Now we never have to run ever again!"  I'm totally on board with that.  But I just went for a run today - just three miles and change - and it's really hard to make yourself run when you don't actually have to!  So we'll see.