Energy City Half Marathon

But those who wait for the Lord’s help find renewed strength; they rise up as if they had eagles’ wings, they run without growing weary, they walk without getting tired.

-Isaiah 40:31

Before the New Year, way back in December last year, I decided to start running a little bit over the weekends. I run the neighborhoods behind my apartments and I kept running past this sign on the side of the road for a half marathon that was coming up in just a few months and I decided that I was going to do it.

So I went home, and I thought about it some more, and then I decided to sign up Cody as well. He's ran a marathon before, so he will be fine.

The next day, I sent an email to my co-workers to let them all know that I had signed up and that they all should too. Because it's important to stay active and healthy! Plus it was a cool team building thing that we got to do. Later on that day, my boss stopped by my office and told me that he'd pay for all the employees and their spouses who wanted to participate! We were supposed to make shirts for everyone to wear, but work got busy! And we ran out of time.

So Cody, me, and 4 guys from my work participated in the race! It was definitely something that I'm glad I did, but I don't know if I will do it again. I might sign up for a 10K next time and just have to run 6 miles. My original goal for running the race was to finish it in 2 hours and 15 minutes. After several weeks of running on the weekends and observing my running speeds, however, I quickly reformed my goal to finish it in 2 hours and 30 minutes, and by the week before the race I thought there is no way I'm finishing it in 2 and a half hours. So my goal was just simply to finish.

I thought that I was going to have to stop for a walk break at 4 miles in and then run a few more, walk for a couple minutes, and so on. But when the race day came, I felt pretty good and I ended up running the first 6 miles before I took a walk break. Then we made it to 10 miles before walking again.

Up until this point I felt really good. I was like, only 3 more miles! I have GOT this! Then I started jogging again, and I was like oh heck no. I looked over at Cody and told him that I really didn't think I was going to be able to finish. I had slowed down, started noticing my toes blistering, and my legs just hurt.

Of course, Cody being the little athlete he is, was like "come on, Steph! You got this, lets sprint!" And he was SERIOUS!!!  He was all running backwards in front of me trying to get me to go faster.

HA. Like that was going to happen.

Somehow, by God's grace, I finished!! I even hard core sprinted the last 100 yards or so. My finish time was 2 hours and 23 minutes! So I did better than I thought that I'd do, and I was just so happy I finished.

So I am officially in the 13.1 club! I even got a little sticker to put on the back of my car even though I will not ever put it on the back of my car. And I got a finisher's medal and a T-shirt!