Joplin Memorial Half-Marathon

I posted last month about my return to running.

Today was the half-marathon that I have been training for for the past 8 weeks.

The farthest I ran in my training was 11 miles, so I knew that I could do 13.1.  

Then this past week my knee started hurting and my toes started bothering me. 

I was getting a little worried that I'd be in pain the whole race and do some permanent damage to my knee.  So I went to the local running store and got some help and advice from a very experienced running employee.

Everything went great.

Sure I came away with a HUGE blister on my toe, but strangely enough, it didn't feel as bad as it looks when I was running.

And my knee held up just fine and feels even better than before the race.

One of my friends in our Ward, Megan Gibson, and I both decided to run. 

Since the race started at 6:30 a.m. and Joplin is an hour drive away, we drove up Friday night and stayed at a hotel.  It was so nice to have a friend with me.  I would have been very lonely by myself.

Saturday we took a shuttle to the run.  I sat by a lady from Texas who had run 22 half-marathons this past year, FOR FUN!  She was upper middle-aged and non-competitive, but really did it for the medals (she showed me a picture on her phone of all the ones she had acquired).  Crazy.  She was going to be doing 2 more in the next 10 days.  Wow.

Since there was no point in the husbands and kids hanging around for over 2 hours, they left that morning and met us at the end of the race.

Here'a  little of their down time while waiting for us:

Charlie is close to Miriam in age and the CUTEST little boy, what a baby face!

Eliza didn't look too thrilled.  Along the run there were spectators, cheering for us and holding various signs.  One sign said "this is the most boring parade ever."  That must have been Eliza's thoughts.

Me with a big smile on my face to finally see my family and know that I was ALMOST done.

I finished with a time of 2 hours and 19 minutes (about 10:45 miles).

325 out of 742 Females.

699 out of 1254 runners.

 

  I was pleased with my results and am feeling sore, but good.

 It was a good experience to set a specific goal and train and work towards it.  It definitely gives me a sense of accomplishment, not to mention that it's good exercise. 

So will I do one again?  Most likely.  

Will I do a full marathon?  I don't want to jinx myself and say NEVER, but I hope not!  I can't imagine running twice that amount!