With every race I always do my best to take away a lesson, something that I can carry with me to use to better my self. I originally trained for this race with a big goal to run it under two hours which would have put me at a twelve minute PR. I trained and worked hard to achieve this goal. Then two weeks before the race I found out some life changing news and so I willingly let go of my goal. I was now running this half marathon just to finish.
Race day was a mild December morning, really a great winter day for running. I remember feeling no butterflies before the start of the race. Just a sense of ease like how I feel during a training run. Most likely because there was no pressure on me to preform. I was feeling good and that feeling would stay with me through out the race. When I filed behind the start I hung out towards the back of the pack and I would stay back there for the first two miles. As I was approaching the third mile I started picking up the pace. I was feeling good and running at a comfortable pace and by mile five I was behind the 2:10 pacer. At this point I realized that I needed to slow down. I am so use to pushing myself during races and under normal circumstances I would have pushed harder to get a PR, so forcing myself to slow down actually was a challenge. I would hold a slow and steady pace for the rest of the race taking a few walking breaks along the way.
My beautiful boy and my best cheerleader.
My husband and my best source of support.
Hanging out before the start.
I found the finish line!
My finish time. I actually did better than I thought.
My son and I.
My bling.
My official time was 2:24:46, really a lot better than I had expected. My reason for taking things slow was because I was five weeks pregnant at the time. I had already spent the past few months training for this race and with my personal training knowledge I knew that baby and I could complete this race safely and we did.
Like I said earlier, I do my best to have a take away lesson for each race. And I have to admit I really had a hard time finding one. After doing some thinking, and trust me I've had four months to think it through I feel that my lesson was it's okay to shelve a goal for later. I know that someday I can always go back to my sub two hour half marathon goal.
Now I also said at the beginning that this blog that the events after the race was difficult for me to write about. Even though what happened had nothing to do with running or the race, I still feel like I need to include it into is blog post. A little over a month after running this race my husband and I found out that we my be losing the baby. After three weeks of hoping and praying I miscarried. Losing a baby is such a hard subject to talk about and because I ran this race pregnant I felt like I couldn't write and post this blog right away. The day after we were told we were going to lose the baby, I signed up for a race that means a lot to me. I signed up for the Sound To Narrows 12k on June 13th, 2015. This was my first race back in 2012 and I knew I needed something to train for. I made the goal to finish in 1:10:00 giving me a ten minute PR.
Last month, my husband and I unexpectedly lost our beautiful son. He was born with special needs and he had been through a lot in his short life but he always had a smile on his face. He would draw people to him with his smile and his wonderful personality. He is the reason I became a runner and he also was my main cheerleader. Seeing his big smile at the end of a race would become an incentive to make it to the finish line when the going got tough. In his memory my husband and I will be running the Tacoma City Half Marathon on May 3rd, 2015. I know it's not going to be an easy finish line to cross, but I know he'll still be cheering me on.
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