2 hours and 23 minutes

I guess I do write a lot more blogs than I thought! I just never post them! I went into my edit post and found a bunch of blogs that never got finished and posted. One of the important ones was about my half marathon! so here it is:

Thats how long it took me to run my half! I was very happy with my time because my goal was somewhere between 2:15 and 2:25. Why did I run a half you might ask.. hmm... good question. Still not really sure. I gained alot of extra weight with Brayden and I knew the only way I was going to loose it would be to run. My first run, I thought I was going to die! It turned out I barely ran a mile. I slowly built up my distance and pretty soon four miles was an easy run. I started chatting with one of Aaron's friends from MN, Miss Angela, and she had recently started running as well. She loves sunny get-aways from the frozen tundra land so she told me to find a race and she would come and run it with me. Well in my mind I was thinking 3K, 5K somewhere along that lines. I found the Surf-City race and skyped her to sign up. Well as we were signing up, we got a crazy thought and signed up for the half. Don't know what possessed us, but we made the leap! We were excited, but nervous because 13 miles is a lllooonnng way to run!

Training started and I quickly learned I wasn't going to get all the training time I needed due to the fact I am a SAHM and a hubby who is a full time student. I ran when I could but was so stressed because I didn't think I would be ready for 13 miles. The farthest I ended up running in training was close to ten miles. And I wasn't able to run a long run the week before the race. But my dad reassured me if I could make it ten, the following 3 would be a piece of cake. He was right!  The hardest part of the race for me was the middle miles. I was getting so bored in my mind! It was weird though because it was like we were running at a social event. People along the way stopped to chat and use the bathroom. Stopped to take pictures at the mile markers. Stopped to talk to family cheering them on. Stopped to eat a snack. Angie and I did an aswesome job at keeping each other up to pace. When we hit mile 10 , the adrenalin hit! Our feet were numb but only 3 miles left!!!  Then 2 miles. Then 1 MILE! The last mile was tough only because people were WALKING right in our way!  Angie was trying to cheer everyone on and get people moving. She was so enthusiastic the whole race! In many of the pictures she had a huge grin on her face and my face sported a scowl. Her cheers and encouragement helped me get through the entire race. We finally crossed the finish line and all I remember her telling me is, "Don't puke here! Keep walking!" We could barely contain our excitement- We had just finished 13 MILES! and HUGE kudos to Angela. In her training, the farthest she had run without stopping was around 8 miles!!! And neither of us walked the entire race. I think we had permanent smiles on our faces for hours. We couldn't really walk for the rest of the day but it was well worth it. We really want to run the Disneyland half marathon but there are details to work out.. but hands down the Surf-City will be a yearly tradition!!

Bright and early 6am! Ready and excited to run

Had to stop and take a picture by a palm tree for good luck. In  our rush to find parking we didn't realize how far away we had parked! After the race, we had to walk a good hour to find our car!! We were shocked how far  it was and kept turning around to look for the car. 

Waiting to get to the starting line

At the starting line.. Angela talked to the announcer guy and he gave a shout-out to Minnesota!

There we are at mile 12!!! If you look closely, Ang is clapping and smiling! 

Proud, hungry and sore but we did it and have the sweet medal to prove it :)