Walla Walla Half Marathon

 Marni and I ready to go before the race.

The race started at 8:15, I didn't even worry about setting an alarm the night before because I was sleeping with Colt and knew that he would be up by 6 at the latest (I was really hoping he would sleep in until at least 6!). I had a rough night, woke up a couple times feeling like I was going to throw up and just really nauseated but when Colt woke me up at 6 that morning I felt pretty good and was excited to race. Marni and I were out the door by about 7:40. My mom and the kids were coming later to cheer us on.

We did not plan our outfits, in fact black was probably a bad choice as it ended up being 75 degrees and sunny when we were running. The weather report said 65 and rainy! My face even got a little burnt.

Since this was the first marathon/half marathon Walla Walla had ever put on it was not a huge race, there were 162 runners in the half marathon and 101 of them were female!

You can tell this is early in the race because I am still smiling.

First time we saw mom and the boys.

Off we go....

Colt spent most the morning decorating these signs for Marni and I.
My mom followed us in the car and would stop at different points along the race course and get out with the boys. Colt would stand there waving the signs and yelling "Go mommy, Go Marni". It was so great to have that encouragement every couple miles and Colt and Jax were great about sitting in a car following us around for almost 2 hours. When my mom would drive past us, Colt would yell out with window "Good job mommy". He's such a sweetie!

My good friend from high school Rachel came from Spokane and ran the race too. It was fun to catch up with her and Sean and see their two kiddos (Mae and Owen).
My mom has the rest of the pictures on her camera so I don't have any from the end. Somewhere around mile 8 I started getting really bad stomach cramps, we kept running and kept a decent pace until about mile 10 when it got so painful I started to get worried (did I mention I ran this half marathon 7 weeks pregnant) so even though my doctor had given me the clear I was still a little concerned and didn't want to push it. We took it easy to the finish after that and finished in a disappointing 1:52 (especially disappointing since exactly 2 weeks before I had run 1:42). This was a tougher course than the previous half I had done in Tri-Cities but I still thought we could run somewhere around 1:45. I kept telling Marni just to go but she wouldn't listen, she stayed right with me the entire time. I guess this means I won't be doing any more races for the rest of this year. I am hoping to run the Walla Walla half again next year, it will give me good motivation to get back in shape after the baby comes in May.