half-marathon!

I did it!! I ran 13.1 miles!

My friend Jessica, my sister-in-law, Laura and I ran a half-maraton together this last Sunday. Jess and I started training for it in January. I have always disliked running, but amazingly found it growing on me as we would add another mile each week.

About 3 weeks ago my left knee started giving my a lot of trouble. I had experienced no knee pain up to this point, and I was running 5 days per week. I had it looked at by my chiropractor and he seemed to think that it was an alignment issue, (because the pain would also shoot to my hip and my ankle.) I had tried for my long run several times, but each time the pain would stop me. Before race day I had only made it 8.5 miles. I was pretty sure that I wouldn't be able to run the whole race because of the pain, and I was considering not doing it at all, but the Lord saw fit to allow me this small victory! I borrowed a strong knee brace from a friend on race day, and prayed that my knee would hang in there.

This race is a huge festival in Frederick, MD. There were I think between 5000 and 6000 runners. We had a hard time parking and barely had time to potty let alone stretch before it was time to go at 6:30am. We were toward the back of the mass of runners, and so didn't cross the start line for about 7 minutes after the race started.

The first 4 or 5 miles were so fun:-) The three of us slowly moved our way forward in the crowd. Folks were cheering, some had their hoses out and sprayed anybody who wanted some water. It was muggy hot! When we started into mile 6 I started to worry because my knee typically started to get bad in mile 7, and by mile 8 I would have to stop. But, mile 8 came and went, and I still felt pretty good, so I just kept going. I did get water and powerade at every stop I could because it was so hot and the powerade gave me a much-needed energy boost. The last three miles were really hard. There were several rough hills, and then we ran along this lonely country road with nobody but stinky farm animals to cheer us!:-)
I finally rounded the corner for the final leg, and saw Peter and Sam cheering up this nasty hill at the end. It was sooo cool! The best part for me was running across the finish line while the crowd in the stadium cheered us all on. Such an amazing feeling!

Here are some pictures of us after the race!