Thursday, April 30, 2009

Country Music (Half) Marathon

Once upon a time, when I was still in Iraq, Sam, Flo, and I signed up for the Country Music Marathon. I trained hard for about 2 months and then came the day (around 'bout January) I realized I didn't have the dedication nor the chutzpah to run a marathon. The one running goal I had always had - to run the Army 10 Miler - I had accomplished while deployed (yay!) but I still wanted to participate so I changed my new goal to the half and talked Ash into coming with me.

Training for me - between switching from day shift to night shift, going home to Virginia, and visiting with Sam - was spotty at best. Ash and I showed up on race day having not trained in months much less run up a hill in years BUT decided we were going to make the best of it no matter what. We'd signed up for the 2hr 30min finish and during the run decided to shoot for a 3 hour finish instead. We did it! Finishing in 3:06!

I have to say the race was truly inspiring. It was so awesome to see people whizzing past us or even the people who, like us, walk/ran the entire thing. We started walking after the first 5K and after many apologies to Ashley (a former cross country runner and a much "smaller" girl she probably could have gone faster) I finally got over the pain and regret of not training and just enjoyed the route. The fans were EVERYWHERE...old ladies passing out fruit, kids handing out dixie cups of water, families and college students standing out with signs.

Sam made a game time decision to run the whole 26.2 and did AWESOME! Flo and Sam's roommate also ran the whole time and met their time goals and then some. Sam's other roommate and parents were there along the route to cheer us on.

I was so upset with myself for not training and yet so inspired by the other runners that I decided I will definitely do another 13.1 again! My goal is getting faster and not overwhelming myself thinking about how far and fast other people are going - just to focus on myself. Today I ran a 10:20 mile followed by another 0.5 at the same pace (pretty proud of myself.)
















{The starting line 38,000+ people!}












{The first of THREE four leaf clovers I found on the course}














{A picture with one of the spectators and his 'free beer' - you can see all the many people we ran with in the background}















{My Boo after 26 miles...we waited for 1.5 hours to get a picture of him at the finish but somehow missed him!}














{A good one of Flo running - the skyline and the bridge we ran over in the background}





{That night Sam, Ash, Sam's roomies and I went to see Dave Matthews and Jason Mraz}







6 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  2. Great Pictures! I want to buy a teeny tiny camera so I can do this sometime. I always end up scouring flickr for pictures.

    Yay for you for finishing, that's what it's all about! :)

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  3. PS--when people give out free beer on the course, always take it! :)

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  4. That's pretty damn impressive, and yet another reason I have to be afraid of Sam.

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  5. I got your blog link from your sister's blog.:) Great job! It is truly an accomplishment to finish a 1/2 marathon! I'm hoping to finish my first one this month too!:) You are inspiring the way you are looking at your weight loss goals. Definitely could take a few pointers from you...

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  6. Hey! I had to make my blog private, e-mail me at fairfaxmiss@gmail.com so I can add you as a reader!

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