My 1/2 marathon play by play

This may be long so if you need to skip over to look at pics, do so.

Running is not an easy thing. I'd say 50% is physical and 100% mental. It is very daunting to wake up and think, 'man, I have to run 21km today'. Than look outside and see the rain, walk outside and feel the temperature and realize that darn weather person was actually correct.

So I get to the race. My 1/2 was almost 3hrs away from my house, my sister lives in Waterloo so that is why I chose to run this race. Since I was away I forgot only one thing, technical socks, a big deal with all the rain we had. I borrowed some cotton socks from my sister but time will tell me, although I had no choice, to remember my good socks next time. I had to walk through a wet soccer field to the venue to register. My socks and shoes were soaked. Than I walked back to my car to tell my husband, Larry, and the kiddos to stay in the car because it was simply yucky out. Pouring rain, cold, and windy. I told Larry to take my picture and to remember my beginning feelings what the eff am I doing here, I'm soo excited to start.

I found Alice, another blogger and her husband. They were both very excited to get going, far more than I was, I honestly just wanted to be done. But it was great to meet you Alice! And you did fantastic!!!

We got going into the race, all was good. We hit the 2km mark and I thought, that's it??? Oh boy. There were numerous people ahead of me, but keep my pace is all I kept saying to myself. My feet were sloshing in my shoes, it was an....experience :). I got to 6km and I went to miss a puddle and ended up kicking the whole puddle into my shoe, ahh! Get over it lady. It stopped raining at 8km for about 7min, which was nice. I continued on till 10km where I decided to walk and pop some electrolyte jelly beans, the only thing I've tried and I wasn't changing what worked. I did try gatorade in a training run and that was horrible toilet time afterwards. At about 13km I decided to put my ipod on thinking this was a good time to get me to the finish.

I got to 15km and thought, wow I actually feel great. My time was about 8-9min off what I was used to but the route was totally different and the weather was horrible so I thought this was great. Than it went bad. I turned a street with wind so strong I almost cried. I looked ahead and no one, NO ONE was around. And that damn street was so long. It was freezing cold, my hands were numb. The only thing I felt was my hips jiggle, lovely. Now I normally don't like to run with anyone, I like being alone, but this was very much alone. Not fun, this is where mental needed to take over.

After that km, I went through good points and bad points. It was definitely tough. The course said it was flat obviously they haven't been to Windsor. It was far from flat, it was rolling hills which is the beauty of Kitchner/Waterloo. At 18km I went to get some more of my beans only to discover they had blown out of my pocket! and I had a meesly linted one. I walked a bit at 19km because it was up hill and heck I looked ahead and everyone was walking, except for the full marathoners running fast past me!

I turned into the final stretch of the park and started to cry, I could see the finish line and I almost let it all out but than I started hyperventilated and couldn't breathe, so I had to get my emotions in track to finish. I saw my girls, Larry, my sister, her boyfriend and their dog all cheering me on. Although I wasn't done yet, I still had another 3/4 of a km left, running through the friggin parking lot full of muck. Than up hill to a finish. My husband yelled your doing great only 5 more minutes, I was very happy I actually did this. I made it to the finish, feeling good. I cannot believe I set a goal this big and followed through, I'm so proud of myself.

5 min to finish!

Finish time 2:42:34

A mommy's job is never done, I don't even have my timing chip off and my daughter was bawling her eyes out for me to put a ponytail in her hair, which I couldn't do because I couldn't feel my fingers!

My family

I have to say, if you couldn't tell, this was the worst weather I have run in for that length of time. I can do rain, I can do snow, I can do cold, I don't really want to do them all at once but I did. I figured if I could do this 1/2 marathon, I could do any half marathon. And to everyone that ran that day, kudos to them, it was a nasty day.

I saw people running with just cotton tanks and shorts, CRAZY! But they did it. I had a man walk faster than I was running, CRAZY!  People of all shapes, sizes, ages. They were all out there testing there bodies and their minds I'm sure. DETERMINATION is what we all decided to take a bit of that morning and we perservered.

Thank you everyone for the great encouragement! It means so much to me to share this experience with you and to have cheerleaders too :)