1/2 the run, just as fun. Or so they say....

I did it! Saturday I ran the 1/2 Marathon I've been training for!! If I wasn't so sore, I would be doing back flips right about now.

Friday afternoon Maile and I drove up to Duluth to pick up our racing packets and do some carb loading. We were happy to meet up with Carey, Jacey and Camie who were also there for all the running fun. (Carey and Jacey were double the fun - 26.2 miles of fun to be exact) We had all signed up for the spaghetti dinner so we got to get our grub on together.

Maile and I drove up sans family, so we pretended that our girlfriends families came to cheer us on!

I won't bore you with the AWFUL details of our lodging experience, but lets just say Maile and I got a less than stellar night of sleep. This is us all bright eyed and bushy tailed just before dropping off our sweat bags.

We had to park and catch a bus to the start line. The drive seemed like it went on and on and left Maile and I super nervous. As we arrived and I saw the sea of people I was pretty overwhelmed. We were lucky enough to again run into Camie who was also with her friend Catherine.

After waiting for almost an hour, the race began and there was no turning back! It took almost 2 minutes to cross the start line and a couple miles before the massive amounts of runners started to break up enough to get a good pace going.

Catherine ended up running with us because she had about the same goal time as both Maile and myself. This proved to be so helpful because she kept us on pace with her wonderful garmin watch.

The weather was ideal. It was in the 60's, overcast and the last couple miles there was a light mist....loved it!

It's all kind of a blur, but somewhere in the middle we lost Maile. Catherine and I stayed together until about mile 11. Once we got into the city, I got this major rush of adrenaline and picked up my pace quite a bit. The crowds in the city cheering everyone on gave me just the boost I needed to finish strong.

My official finishing time was 2 hours, 5 minutes on the button, which is about a 9:30 a mile pace. I had two goals going into the race: #1-finish without walking and #2 try to get a 2:10 finish. I was happy to meet goal #1, and beat goal #2!

Here's Maile, Camie and I postrace. We look a little beat up, but estatic to be finished!

Also, congrats to Jacey and Carey for being rockstars.....they ran the full marathon and killed it.