Excuse me for this being late, I was too lazy to blog yesterday. When my daily mile report came out yesterday it was all kinds of wrong. NO ONE should work out that much unless they are training for something and I AM NOT training for anything in particular.

On Sunday I ran my 14th half marathon and final race of the year. This was supposed to be a fun run for me; kind of like a reward for all the hard work I put in this year. Christmas music + christmas cookies = a fun time. Everyone got a santa hat, beard and santa tech shirt for registering.  This race really put me in the Christmas spirit.

The night before I had chicken and waffles. I asked the lady to grill my chicken and you would have thought I asked her to kill the chicken. She didn’t think it was going to be good, but there was no way I was eating fried chicken and eating that waffle. You see folks, running is a good excuse for me to eat things like waffles because I need the carbs. In this case, it didn’t do it for me. I usually carb up on veggies and I should have stuck to that plan because I really wasn’t ready to roll for the race the next morning. Honestly, I don’t think I ate enough. Shocker!

Race morning we all were ready to run. The Santa Hustle took place on Galveston Island which is a great place to run. All of my buddies were there to run too so it was a big party. We took a lot of pictures before the race. We were all there to run but no one was really talking about it.

I ran the race with Dawn! She pushes me to keep going and I love her for that. Besides that, this was Dawn’s 50th race! I was really honored to run this race step for step with her. We had a goal to finish in 2:30 but we took off way too fast. We wanted to enjoy the race so we took pictures a long the way.

I’ve been trying to overcome some knee issues since the “marathon” but nothing major. It just has to do with some tightness in my calf which if I did what I was supposed to it wouldn’t be a problem. Note to self: stretch and foam roll religiously! But Dawn kept me pushing on. Honestly, I would have stopped a half dozens times to walk if I wasn’t running with her. We only stopped at water stops and when Dawn saw those stops she would speed up. It was funny but I was up for it. I always knew when we were about to hit a station cause she would speed up. I loved it!

The route was a lot of out and back so you saw the same thing the whole time.  That was kind of a bummer, but at least most of the time we were running by the beach.  Can’t complain about that, right?  I had to strip about mile 6 because it was starting to get too hot for me.  I hated to do it because I didn’t want to look indecent but the long sleeve tech tee wasn’t working for me anymore.

There really wasn’t much to say about the race.  I didn’t feel much of anything but happiness.  I was glad to have made it through the year, glad to run Dawn’s 50th race with her, glad to be there with all my friends…I was just glad.  In the last mile, my calf started to tighten really bad but it was only momentary.  When we stopped for that we were running at 2:12 which was 17 mins above the goal.  We finished at 2:17:59 TOGETHER! This was just an amazing moment and I will remember it forever and I hope it was the same for her.  This woman inspires me and pushes me to be better!

Look at all those fabulous Golden Triangle Strutters! It was really great to run the race with all of my friends.

Of course we celebrated with low fat chocolate milk. It’s got the right protein to carb ratio to aid in recovery. We’re all training for marathons that are coming up close. We have to get back out there!

I’m usually not hungry can’t eat after races, but this time I was starving. I think it had something to do with the late start of the race! By the time everyone was done it was 11:00 am so we headed to Fuddrucker’s to eat. I got a veggie burger and some black beans! It was delicious or I was just really hungry because that food wasn’t there that long!

The medal is sooo cute and it was a fun race even. I think I’ll run it again next year!
So my 14th half marathon of 2013 is done. I have to start setting new goals for next year!

What do you think I should aim for in 2014? What is your goal for 2014?