Snake River Half Marathon 2012

One of my New Year's resolutions was to beat my time from last year: I finished in 2:31:51, averaging 11.36/miles. I hadn't trained as much as I should have, and was hurting so badly the last four or five miles that I ended up walking most of those. I hadn't paced myself, starting out WAY too quickly, and I was very cocky thinking I could outrun my friends that I was there with because they are in their early forties. While I am glad I did it last year, it was not the funnest experience for me, and I wasn't planning on doing this race again anytime soon. Until I was guilted into it.

Sydne, Brenda, Dee, Ashley and I before the race.

In contrast, this year was AWESOME!!! 


I had a training schedule, and I stuck to it as much as I could. Having three kids, running is not my highest priority, so I missed a few runs here and there, (some due to blizzard-like conditions) but I tried to make up for them when I could. I had fellow runners to keep me accountable. I've been learning to pace myself a lot better, to run through discomfort, to ignore the part of me that wants to stop and walk (unless I really am in pain.) Most importantly, I've learned to not judge runners by how they look. Yes, it's humbling to get passed by a 70 year old lady, but she's worked for it, and I overheard her talking about doing the Boston Marathon and Ironman this year, so clearly she's earned the right to pass a 24 year old. I tried to set more reasonable goals on the half this year than simply looking ahead and thinking I wanted to pass the old man ahead of me, or the overweight woman. Yes, it is a race, but everyone is running to their best ability, and it's an endurance race, so there's no point in killing myself to try and pass someone who's a better runner.


I feel like I've grown so much as a runner this past year.


The girls and I all met up in Coeur d'Alene to head down to the race together at 6:30. I was feeling pretty good, better than usual because I was able to eat actual food, which normally I have a hard time with. We got there earlier than we meant to, registered, got our "swag bags" (which were kind of lame this year) and wandered around trying to stay warm.
The race finally started, and I knew I needed to pace myself, but it just felt like I was going so slowly! But I passed the first mile marker at 9:19 or something like that, and knew I was probably still going faster than I should. By mile 2, that nagging voice in my head was telling me I was tired and wanted to walk, but I told it to be quiet and that we would run until mile 4. At mile 4, I told that voice to be quiet until 6, and so on. I tried to keep myself from thinking that I had so many more miles ahead of me by eavesdropping on conversations happening around me. I loved the enthusiasm of first time runners running in pairs, the cute old couple ahead of me going at a steady pace (they finished about 20 seconds before me!) quietly encouraging each other to press on, the loud music blaring out of young women's headphones.The steady fall of footprints around me. All of it seemed to equate to this peacefulness in the midst of around 700 runners.

Not sure how well you can see, but there are runners wrapped around the bend of the river. I am about in the middle of the pack.

The turn-around point at 6.5 miles was a big milestone for me. Last year at the point, I had already been walking a while, and just feeling so down on myself for not doing better. My ankles had been starting to hurt, and I was so discouraged that I was only halfway done. This year, I was still going strong, I had run through some shin pains, and as a bonus, I was ahead of everybody I knew at the race. (Victory for my ultra-competitive nature!) I turned around at 1:02:10.


The next few miles seemed to fly by since I had people to look for that were still heading to the turn-around. After mile nine, I started to get tired a bit, and strong head winds started to blow. And I mean strong! When you have to physically brace yourself and buckle down for it, you know it's going to be a tough four miles. 


The thing about this course is while it's kind of pretty in its own way, the landscape doesn't differ at all the whole way and it gets pretty boring. So I was overjoyed to see the herd of cows at the 11 mile mark (mile 2 on the way out) knowing that I was almost done. And really, when you've run 11, what's 2 more? It felt like I was running so slowly because of the wind, and I started to worry that I wouldn't be able to beat last year's time after all; especially when I overheard two girls say 2-15. I thought they meant we had already been going to 2 hours, 15 minutes, and there was no way I'd be able to finish under 2:31 with two miles left.


The wind still blowing like crazy, it was hard to resist the urge to walk. Thankfully, a water station was right ahead as I was seriously considering it, so I walked the few paces it took to down the water, then felt like I would be able to start running again. I was so thrilled to see the markers for miles 12 and 13! The last tenth of a mile went on forever it seemed. There were people everywhere and so it was hard to tell where the finish line was exactly, but finally I could see the clock. There's no better feeling than seeing that clock especially when it has a good time on it. A much better time than I was expecting with the wind and how slowly it felt I'd been going.

Okay, I look like a complete dork when I run, it turns out! But check out my calves ;)

I crossed the finish line at 2:11:25. Shaving off just over 20 minutes from last year's time! I was thrilled! And then a little less thrilled when I realized we didn't get medals this year, but still happy with my performance. 

The bonus about finishing first out of my friends is that I got to see them all finish! It was so exciting. It was Brenda's 17th Half Marathon, Ashley's 1st, Sydne's 2nd (? I think?) and Dee's 4th. We celebrated with Mimosas in the parking lot:

We keep things pretty classy!

So, here's to next year, and trying to beat this year's time! In the meantime, I have a few small races in the next few months, and then bigger ones in the summer, and hopefully we get into the Nike Women's Half lottery for the fall.