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| My PR race: 1:44:45 |
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| What I look like in my imagination and what I look like in real life are very different.... |
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| Doesn't even look like me... must be really concentrating on something?!? |
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| You can see all the people I passed... and my boob sweat - haha!!! |
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| I look like a giraffe ... I am sprinting as fast as my giraffe legs can carry me! |
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| Notice the TWO medals... The Frederick medal and the Titanium Girl medal!!! |
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| Good to see my posture sucks when I run too! |
Below is me giving Cora and Luke their high fives!!! Seeing them on the course had me chocked up. I teared up and hick-upped as I fought to regain my composure for a bit after leaving them...
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| Luke, Cora, Atlee, Carrie |
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| Dorky smile but at least I don't look like the guy in front of me (I passed him too). |
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| Almost finished! |
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| Finished!! |
When I started running in August 2011, about nine months ago, I had trouble running 3 miles without stopping... I worked myself up to 20 miles per week and thought that was an accomplishment.....I decided to run the Freedom Run Half Marathon in late October and couldn't believe that after 9 weeks I could finish a half marathon...
Now, after 9 months I am no longer surprised but I am still proud of myself. Two half marathons in one week, both under 1:50 and one beating my goal pace, with a 1:44:45. I have a feeling that I will beat that time next year... but for now, I am really happy!
I am very lucky to have a natural ability with running, but it still takes work, effort, dedication, mental toughness, resilience, and patience. I know I run faster than a lot of people who have been working at this for a while, but I also know I can run faster.
Running fast takes time and dedication to train... Finding time is hard because I feel guilty not spending that time with my family or friends. I have had to say "no" that I can't go do something because I have a run...I have missed soccer games, swim lessons, spent less time on the blog, less golf, less time talking with my husband, my house is messier, laundry piles up more...I have 5 hours each week night and weekends to do "everything" and if I run 4 days a week - 3 runs averaging one hour and 1 run averaging two hours, plus travel time... it starts to cut into life...especially after a 14 mile run - who really wants to vacuum, dust, and do laundry after that?!?! (wink wink)
I am not sure how long I will want to run this much, how much faster I want to work towards, or what I will have time for, but right now it is still fun and it is still a good challenge.
I will keep doing this while it is fun but I have to keep a good balance between family, friends, work, and life. I hope I can manage to keep everything in balance!
(which is why this blog post is almost one week after the race and at 11pm and while I am waiting to pull the last load of clothes out of the laundry and on a Friday night when everyone else is asleep...)
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