I did it... today I ran the 1/2 marathon (13.1 miles) at 2:09:58 to my total surprise! Yes, I signed up for it back in August...along with a 5k(3.1 miles) and the Bridge run (10 miles)and figured signing up for them would get me training! Well, life got busy and it was really hard for me to run during the week. I usually got in one short run during the week and tried to get in longer ones on the weekends.
The bridge run was hard as I mentioned in my earlier post and when I finished I knew that I hadn't trained enough and I needed to do that for the 1/2 marathon only 4 weeks away! But life continued to be busy and running during the week was extremely difficult and again only got one or two short runs in and tried to do long on the weekends.
2 weeks ago, I decided to try to run 13.1 miles to see how off I was going to be. I only made it 12 and it took me 2 hours and 12 minutes to do it. I was exhausted at the end and I walked a lot!
I got two short runs in before today. This morning I got up, put on my Ethan running shirt - the E symbol on the front and "Give me half the strength of Ethan" on the back - excited and ready for whatever was going to happen. The Chamber Choir - I'm in it - sang O Canada and The Star Spangled Banner before the race - it was beautiful and so fun to do!!
Then off to the race... I hit 3 miles at 28 minutes - the best I'd run in a long time and I was feeling great! I hit 10 miles at 1 hour and 37 minutes - my bridge run time was 1:42?!! - then came mile 11 and mile 12...thought I was going to throw up...never had that happen to me before in a race..so I slowed to a walk trying to calm my stomach. Also at this time, some crazy song was playing on my mp3 player. I thought I had added Lady by Little River Band
which tells you to look around, look up here, take time to make time, make time to be there (a great uplifting song for me) but for some reason I didn't pay attention to the artist when I downloaded it and it was Lenny Kravitz Lady!
Not at all what I expected and it completely threw me off. So I'm walking, trying not to throw up and trying to figure out what this song was and why I had added it to my playlist....when a lady came up behind me and touched my shoulder and said "run for Ethan"...I told her Thank You and was thinking God bless you and started running again...not 2 seconds later the song "I'm Blue" by Eiffel 65 came on - it was one of Ethan's favorite songs!
I smiled, looked to the heavens and said thank you and ran on to the finish! Joe and Jared came and saw them about a tenth of a mile from the finish line. That helped me even more and I was able to sprint it in to the finish line! It was great to finish feeling so good.
God blesses us in ways we don't even think of and He is so awesome! It's a great day to be alive in Christ Jesus!
