I did it!! My First Half Marathon

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I did it!! My First Half Marathon

Where: Germantown, TN 
When: March 17, 7:30
Temperature:  52 degrees at start time and overcast skies

In elementary school, my first coach always said, “Winners never quit and quitters never win!”
If you don’t think grown-ups, teachers, coaches, parents don’t have an impact on children, think again. I was in sixth grade and I have never forgotten her words. I have used them as my mantra* many times in different circumstances and while running throughout my life.

If you’re unfamiliar with mantras, it’s a word or phrase that you repeat over and over again to motivate or push you through something. (Click the word to see the official definition.) In athletes, it’s a motivational phrase that pumps you up and keeps you going when you want to die stop. Like:

Winners never quit…winners never quit…winners never quit

and sometimes I just say

step step step step don’t stop… dont’ stop…step step step step don’t stop…don’t stop

What it does for me is take my mind off whatever’s hurting or making me want to stop.

In addition to mantras, below are some things that got me through.

Love some Mizunos! I’d rather have Mizunos than Manolos!

I have a narrow foot. Mizunos fit me perfectly. I wear the Wave Creation…I think I have every one of them. (They number the new ones each year like Wave Creation 11, Wave Creation 12, etc) Just a note, they run half a size small. Trust!

For more tips on shoes read this!

I started taking this a month before the event. It aids in muscle recovery and endurance.

I take the above supplements plus a multivitamin.

For a little protein, I ate a Luna bar 2 hours before race time.

I drank Gatorade’s Pregame Fuel 15 minutes before the run.
(Sorry I forgot to take a picture.)

These are fantastic! Taste just like jelly beans except with caffeine, carbs, electrolytes & vitamins B & C.

I ate a few of these Sports Beans at mile 4 and 6.

I liked the flavors of these GU by Gatorade better. They’re a bit thick (think toothpaste).

They’re small and I took a couple in my ‘fanny’ pack.

(and you thought fanny packs were for older tourists!)
I drank, took, shot (whatever it is you do to it), consumed one at mile 8 and one at mile 11.

I used this waist pouch to put my GU and beans and chapstick in it
and either held or put my phone in my sports bra.
Yeah, whatever, it stayed put.

If it seems like a took and drank and ate a lot, I did. I usually run on an empty stomach.

It was fine. I was tired but not totally dying at the end.

And, I never once thought I was going to have to stop.

My sweet family rushed to 3 different locations on the route and cheered.

I needed them at the last one, I think it was 10 or 11-mile marker.

It was the last push I needed and I even sped up a little after seeing them.

I also tossed Wesley my fanny pack — ah, freedom!

Do not attempt a long run without this!

Trust.

Otherwise, you will get chafed in places you didn’t know you could get chafed in!!

Put it on your feet, your bra line, your panty line, hell, rub it all over!!

I breathe through my mouth, my lips get chapped.

I don’t like chapped lips.

It’s marketed toward tweens and teens… get some! It totally rocks!

This is the best sports bra ever!

Under Armour it’s expensive, but it’ll keep you supported.

And it doesn’t rub and chafe (even without the chafe glide).

I’m talking a lot of chafing….

My knee braces. I have this thing about protecting my knees.

I don’t know if I really need them. But, if they can protect my knees I’m all for it.

Besides, Wesley said at some point if I keep running I’ll need knee surgery.

I love to prove him wrong.

Just in case there was pain!

Bib number and race route.

Luckily a flat course (or otherwise I may not have run it.)

Fun shirt for my hours of pain and suffering.

Right after the race! I was so happy!

And just a note, you don’t wear knee braces on your calves.

I was tired of them on my knees.

My new bling!

I can’t stop looking at it!

I should have been holding up thumbs up instead of #1, because I was nowhere near the first.

But, whatever, I was tired. I was happy!

I finished at 2:11:34 (that’s 2 hours 11 minutes 34 seconds) My goal was 2:15 and I thought I’d be dying at that pace.

The best advice I got prior to the race was from a random sales clerk teenybopper chick (because I get in deep conversations with my sales clerks at times) at Lululemon. She had run several marathons and countless Half Marathons. She told me to have fun and enjoy it. I needed that, motivation and strength come from odd places at times, but when she said it, it was the first time I thought, ‘this could be fun’.

It was fun! (thanks random chick!)