I Do Not Recommend This But...

In case you all are wondering how Mercedes Half Marathon went, here goes... The entire weekend was a blast, it started out with dinner with Merle's brother and sister-in-law at Cocina Superior in Brookwood-this is my favorite Tex-Mex ever! Saturday Sarah, Cindy and I went to to race expo and from that point on I realized I really did sign up to run 13.1 on Sunday, we spent the rest of the afternoon with some other friends frolicking around Birmingham shopping for new running gear, bought some Girl Scout cookies, chatting, reminiscing and I purchased my first MAC lipstick! I was so excited:) Merle's mom made pasta dinner that night-it was delicious and I stayed up way past my bedtime-the night before a race you don't really sleep anyway. I woke @ 4:45 AM, geared up for the 29 degree weather, put on my race tag and was ready to rock-still, I was so nervous I was sick to my stomach just thinking about the fact that I may finish in very poor time or not even finish at all. Sarah was awesome about the whole race-she is a very fast runner but was happy doing whatever speed I was okay with. We started between the 4:30 & 4:45 marathon pacers, we decided with would walk 1 minute every two miles to stretch/get water/Shot Blocks. At mile 5 we felt awesome! Around 8 or 9 the pain started to kick into the hips, ankles and knees for the both of us, I was a little nervous because I have rolled my right ankle twice over the past 6 months. At mile 9.5 the crowd support and music really pumped us up! I looked at my Garmin and we were holding around a 10:25 pace, I couldn't believe it! I ran this half in 2:21 last year and never imagined I would run any faster this year due to lack of training-I told Sarah I would cry tears of joy if we finished under that time! Mile 11 was horrible-everything in my body was throbbing so we walked a little and we ran a little...by mile 12 I just wanted to stop but knew I couldn't. We finished in 2:20:42!!! I know that's not stellar but I was very happy considering all circumstances! Cindy finished in 2:08:55 for her first half ever, she trained herself and I am SO proud of her! After the race we grabbed our celebratory things at the after party and had brunch. It was a fabulous weekend over all getting to spend quality time with great friends and people and I will definitely run this race again next year! As I said, I do not recommend going into a race under trained but in this case everything turned out perfect except for the soreness the past 48 hours:)