Payoff!

Since this is the only picture I have from this morning's half-marathon {sorry guys, I'm not SkinnyRunner}, I'm posting it with a little recap of the race. 

The gun went off at 8 am, and the girls I was going to run with took off! I knew there was no way I'd be able to keep up that pace, much less get back to my normal one if I ran that fast at the beginning so I lagged back.

I was feeling GREAT until about mile 11. I got a little crampy {I think I'd had too much water/gatorade -- is that even possible, or am I just making an excuse??} and I slowed down for a few, but I knew I didn't have far to go, so I kept pushing it. 

{By the way, my 10 mile time was 4 minutes faster than it was when I did that length training run!}

Then I saw the mile 12 marker and told myself I'd walk for 15-20 seconds. Uhh, then I saw that some of our friends were right next to that marker and there was no way I was going to walk right in front of them! Ha ... so I pushed a little farther and walked for 20 seconds and then picked it up again and ran to the finish. 

I ended up only a couple minutes behind one of the girls I started with and only about 20 seconds behind another one.

All in all, I feel really good about my first half. My time was about 2:07 -- I forgot to stop my Garmin, so I'm not sure what my exact time was, but I definitely pushed it in the end to stay under/at 2:07.