The Half Marathon I Didn't Die In

A girl makes plans to run a half marathon in January in St. George because she is enticed by the possibility of a warm weather weekend.  She forgets that the months of Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays required to prepare for said weekend all must take place where she lives--which tends to be quite cold in winter.

So I didn't run a ton.  Toward the end I was only faithful to twice a week but have toughened up considerably since my first race two years ago that I trained for entirely on a treadmill.  I can handle running outdoors in the cold for the most part.  I also did a lot of Crossfit, so the non-running days were still getting work done. But still, I was aware of bad things coming.

I hear the most important time for sleep and quality food to fuel you for a race is the week prior.  Despite my best intentions, both eating and sleeping were quite sub-par, thus further shooting my race preparations to hell.

The day before the race I had cold chicken fingers for lunch and the night before the race I slept about three hours.*  I was unconcerned by then, however, because it was too late to care.  The race started and Summer said to me, "Wanna just do the 5K?" as we giggled about what a crap race this was going to  and took off.  I usually time/pace myself with a GPS watch but it's acting up; Summer brought hers instead but forgot to wear it, so we decided to not stress about it and just run for our lives.

I was amazed at how fun a race it turned out to be.  My dad and Fay were our cheering section and met us at random places around the route with snacks, along with some poster holders with a sign that said, "Go Amy, Heather, Summer and Emily!"  They didn't know it, but we counted their cheer for us as well.  We cruised up hills with zero problem, and even had some time to stop and take pictures along the way. 

The last two miles were grueling, just as the last two miles of any run are bad.  During the time my brain entered delirium it brought up the story of Bilbo Baggins, and I imagined myself trudging through a freezing dark forrest fighting for life. This mental adventure worked, and I ended up significantly beating my last half marathon time.  Book nerd that I am, it doesn't surprise me that I transcended into a story.  I just wonder why I made myself a Hobbit.

After race pictures: everything looks all sweet and happy here.

Here I am with my biggest fan.

 

This is how I really felt. I had charly horses in my hips.  Dumb Hobbit hips! 

Footnote:
*This sentence speaks Hemmingway, in case you didn't notice.