So at this point it’s July and it’s about dang time I put up a recap of my last half marathon in MARCH, right?! Right! Here goes – when we ran New Years Double on January 1st Teal did the half and I did the the full so we found ourselves yet again at not the same half marathon number. Don’t you love how we try and keep that the same?? It just makes it easier to keep count!
I had signed up for Rock ‘n’ Roll Dallas as the last half I would run during this pregnancy. The weather has been pretty good for this race minus 2012 when it was hot! I didn’t then and still don’t now really know how pregnancy and hot weather mix, but it completely scares me! 🙂 Anyway, I thought this would be a great last half to do plus it was great motivation to keep me going with running. And my cousin/friend, Chase, would be coming up from Houston to run this race as well!
It was hard to have goals for this race other than finish it! At 20 weeks pregnant and still not really noticeable that I am pregnant I just didn’t know what my body would want to do that day. While you couldn’t totally tell I was pregnant my pace had definitely slowed down some so I knew I was not going to be busting out a new PR or anything that day. Of course, as race day got closer I did have this idea in my head that maybe I could achieve a 2:10 half, but again this would take a lot of listening to my body.
I got in my corral just minutes before the first corral was signaled to take off. I was getting nervous, but was also thankful that it was kind of chilly out there instead of really, really hot! When it was our turn Chase and I took off together although we didn’t stay together long because of a potty break. 🙂 In our family we joke about how some of us have the world’s smallest bladders and lucky for both Chase and me we inherited it! I knew I would see some friendly faces out on the course so I just tried to start off conservatively and keep an eye out for people to say “hi” to!
photo cred to Amy Stubblefield
My first sighting was Amy from NTX Runners who snapped the above picture of me. Since I waited until the beginning of July to write this recap (minus the few notes I put in my phone) I can’t remember now when I expected to see Teal & Catherine out there cheering, but it was juuuust shortly after this and I was soooo happy to see their smiling faces!
My happiness of seeing them is evidenced below. 🙂
A little blurry, but I was surviving which is good to do somewhere around the 3.5 mile mark of a half marathon. 🙂 So I kept on going and the next big thing I remember from the course was that I was running through a neighborhood, saw this group of people outside of a house and thought that little kid looks familiar! Ohhhh, it’s Cason! As in the son of J-Si from KISS FM and sure enough his wife, Kinsey, holding their daughter and their son, Cason, playing. Though I didn’t actually see J-Si out there anywhere. Bummer! But I thought that was fun since I’m a Kidd Kraddick in the Morning fan!
Shortly after this I saw the most awesome cheering squad comprised of FRUNNERS!! Right around mile 8 which made me oh so happy! I mean, look at those happy faces and look at that hot dog! 🙂
photo cred to Mama C
This left me with a goofy grin on my face and not even a mile down the road from that sighting did I hear the sounds of a police officer being an awesome cheerleader for all of the runners! This was the first time I’d really heard an officer be THAT encouraging and vocal towards runners on a race course. I loved it! So pretty much the goofy grinned stayed on my face that much longer thanks to him. Before you know it I was telling myself you only have a 5K left! And then it was you only have a mile left! Somewhere I was able to tap into a bit of a reserve for a final kick right before the finish line.
I don’t know who exactly gets the photo cred here, but Lisa texted me the picture 🙂
Oh, did you wanna know if I actually came in around 2:10 or not like I had put in my head?! Well, I made it across the finish line in 2:09:19! I was pretty darn proud of myself and felt like I ran a really conservative race considering I was in fact running for two. 🙂
With that I was caught up to Teal with half marathon no. 21 in the books! We will see you half marathons again on the other side of our pregnancies! 🙂
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