Indian Summer Half Marathon

I ran the Indian Summer half marathon in Richland today, this was my 3rd year in a row running this race. 3 years ago I ran this half with my little sister, it was my first half marathon and Jax was 3.5 months old at the time. We ran it in 1:49 and as usual Marni was pushing me the entire way. Last year I ran it by myself and set a PR of 1:42, I had trained hard for this race and wanted to run a 1:45 so I was very happy with a 1:42. The day after this race I found out I was pregnant with Case. This year I signed up not really excited to run but I knew I wanted to run some type of half this fall and didn't know if I would get another chance. I have been training but not that hard, I had run a couple longer 9-10 mile runs but my running pace is pretty slow right now and I just don't feel in great shape. On top of that I have been mentally and physically exhausted since school started over a month ago, I wake up at 4:30 and hardly stop all day and I am still getting woken up in the night to feed Case or take care of one of the other boys. Anyway, all these factors and I just was not looking forward to running but I had signed up and wasn't willing to just forgo the $20 and not run. We drove over to Kennewick the night before and stayed the night with Dave's parents. I got up at 6 the next morning, got myself ready, had a small breakfast of baked oatmeal and fruit and then Dave drove me to the race. We got there around 7:30, I fed Case one more time and then ran to the start line. The race is fairly small (only about 400 runners this year) so its easy to find parking and get to the start line without a bunch of traffic. It started at 8 and you run along the Columbia River and through a couple neighborhoods, then turn around and come back. My parents drove over that morning and were at mile 2, 11 and the finish line yelling and cheering for me. My goal was to finish under 2 hours but I really didn't know if I would be able to do it. I started off and told myself to just keep my pace under 9 min and focus on each mile individually instead of all the miles ahead of me. With each mile I would pick one person to think about/pray for, it worked really well and was a reminder of how lucky I am that I get to be running no matter what my finishing time was, I don't run with music so this was a good distraction. I had never done this before during a race but got the idea from the book Mile Markers by Kristin Armstrong. At the turn around point (6.5 miles) I was feeling surprisingly good and when I hit mile 7 I decided to pick up my pace a bit. Mile 10 was hard but I knew that I would see my parents again at mile 11 and my mom would be cheering, when I passed them my mom had Marni on the phone and Marni was yelling for me through the speaker which was a big boost of confidence for me. I hit mile 12 and told myself I could run the last mile in under 8 minutes, I was tired but I knew I had it in me. I finished in 1:54 and my last mile was 7:50. I was happy to see my parents and so glad they drove over to support me. Even though I did not have a chance of winning I love that they were still there supporting me and cheering.

 My awesome, supportive parents.

 My friend Rachel (she PR'd and ran a 1:46), my dad and I.

Sprinting to the finish.

My parents drove me back to Mike and Julie's after the race, I showered and spent the rest of the day playing with the boys. We finally got home that night around 8:30 and I was exhausted, my entire body ached. I was lucky enough to get a back/leg rub from Dave before bed and he even let me sleep in the next day until 8! I have hopes of running this race next year and breaking 1:40 (that is if I'm not pregnant......HA!).