Today I ran a half marathon.  This was one that wasn’t on the schedule.  It was kind of last minute and it was a race I had never done before.  Last week I ran a bridge so it’s not that bad of an idea.  The race was only a hour and some change away so it wasn’t a big deal to run it.

The day started out with some run group fun! I love all of these people. They really make me smile. And they get that I don’t do well with small talk.

I wore my new compression socks that kind of matched my Team Chocolate Milk. I kind of made it match because I like fun socks.

I didn’t have any goals or expectations for this race. I’ve been running pretty good lately so I wasn’t going to push my luck. Plus the weather forecast called for strong rainstorms the entire week so I didn’t want to get too excited about it. Today was all about the finish. I just wanted to run a race with my best friend Jes. With is a loose term meaning we will run the same race but not together.

The race was over a bridge. This bridge wasn’t as bad as the bridge last week but it was pretty tough. The view was amazing.

But it smelled like a hot mess for a large portion of the race. I couldn’t get over it. But like I said the view was nice. The course was an out and back so we had the honor of running the bridge twice. On the way back, it started to rain. Rain + eyeglasses = bad combination. It was hard for me to see at some points.

One guy took my hand and was trying to pull me up the bridge when I was on a walk break. I didn’t really appreciate that because I was on a walk break. I appreciate the encouragement though, so I won’t get too mad about it.

The only goal I had was to try to stay at marathon pace. I finished the half marathon in 2:14:34 (avg pace 10:16). That’s two minutes faster than last week’s bridge run so I’ll take it. The half marathon might be my distance, but I’m really working on improving my marathon. Hopefully, next week’s run will help me do good in my next marathon. That’s why I was happy to drink my lowfat chocolate milk at the end. It’s got the right ratio of carbs and protein to help with recovery. I need to get back on my feet as soon as possible because I’m running a ultra marathon on Saturday!

The medal was pretty cool too.

And I finally got a chance to meet Amanda. We always miss each other at the races but this time we finally got to meet.