My first Half Marathon!

First of all, I just need to say that running a Half Marathon was not something I ever thought I'd do. And to be completely honest with you, there were times during my training that I seriously thought I wasn't going to be able to do it. But after a few good long runs, I just KNEW I had it in me... and as my anticipation began to build, so did my confidence.

We arrived in Oklahoma on Friday night and visited with Matt's family for a bit before calling it a night. On Saturday we enjoyed a beautiful day in Oklahoma City meeting up with a couple of Matt and Rachel's friends, picking up our race packets and exploring the Oklahoma City Memorial site. We went out for italian food on Saturday night... the perfect pre-race meal. I think Rachel and I may have taken carb-loading to a whole new level with the amount of rolls we ate! ;)

With a race start time of 6:30am, we had a 4am wakeup call on Sunday morning! After making it into OKC around 5:30am, we parted ways with Matt. He headed off to the area he planned to watch us from and Rachel and I raced off to the porta-potties! As soon as we stepped outside the parking garage, it started POURING rain! We were SO glad we had decided, last-minute, to run with our jackets on! About halfway to the starting line, people started passing us in the opposite direction letting us know that the race had been postponed to 7am due to lightning. We headed inside the nearest hotel in search of shelter, warmth (did I mention it was about 42 degrees outside!) and a bathroom... and we happened upon about a hundred other runners doing the same thing.

Eventually, it was nearing 7am and we headed off to the start line (it was still pouring!)... turns out we waited just a little too long, and couldn't make it all the way to our corral in time. We got stuck in the wrong corral with a pack of runners who were planning to pace MUCH faster than we were... oh well! We figured they could pass us. :)

Before we knew it, we were off.... sloshing along in our already-soaked clothes and shoes! It was COLD, windy, and pouring rain.

Around mile 1, we passed Matt... waved for a quick picture, and continued on our way. (Unfortunately, he lost his camera somewhere along the way... )

Miles 2-6 passed pretty easily. We hit the 10K mark about a minute ahead of our Capitol 10K time, and we were feeling pretty strong (and cold!). The wind, rain and cold were pretty painful. At one point Rach and I looked at each other at the exact same time to comment that the rain was hurting our faces!

After mile 7 we split off from the full marathoners, and I looked at Rachel and said, "You realize those guys still have almost 20 miles to go?!" Her response: "Yeah, I would never." The guy running next to her looked over at us and laughed in agreement. ;)

During mile 9, I started to feel my legs tightening up/becoming completely numb. I reached for my sports beans to get a little electrolyte kick. I didn't account for the fact that my fingers were frozen solid and I couldn't really get them out of the package! I managed to get 2 out and gave up. Offered them to Rachel and she turned me down (turns out her hands were numb too and she didn't think she'd be able to get them out either). I tried putting my hands in my sleeves, but they were so wet and cold that it made it even worse!

As we passed mile 10, all I could think about was that it was nearly the furthest I had trained and I was hoping that I could keep going to the end. Everyone told me that if I could do 10, I could do 13.1... but at this point, I wasn't really sure I believed them. My knees were starting to ache a little bit and my legs were feeling slightly lead-like. I felt like we were still keeping a pretty consistent pace though.

Just after mile 11, I looked at Rachel and told her that my legs were starting to hurt and she said "Yeah, I'm not sure mine are even moving!" We made the decision to stop for a second and stretch out our legs... which helped a little bit.

As we continued on our way, it felt like the miles were getting REALLY LONG... somehow we had both missed the mile 12 marker! No wonder! We heard someone near us mention that we only had .6 miles to go! We rounded a corner and the finish line came into sight... and so did the sun! The clouds were parting for our home stretch! We passed Matt along the sidelines just before the finish and tried to give it our all. I felt like I was running really fast in that last .1 mile, but by the looks of the picture below, I think I was barely jogging... ;)

Rachel and I crossed the finish line side-by-side... and we could NOT have been happier! We gave each other a huge hug, received our medals, and immediately sought out mylar blankets! My hands were so completely frozen that I could barely even hold/open my powerade bottle! Eventually we found Matt, took some pictures, and headed to the car in search of WARMTH! We were completely soaked to the bone!

Our official finish time was 2:24

It was a really good course. We went through all sorts of interesting neighborhoods/areas of town, and although there were some inclines, there were enough declines to even it out. You can see the elevation map below:

We did it!!  And I couldn't be more proud of us! And you know what? I'm pretty sure I'll do it again... eventually! ;)