Race Results - Heart Half Marathon

Toddler Charlie made his running debut on Saturday afternoon at the Heart Mini Marathon Kids Fun Run. It was super cute, and he was SO excited to be racing.

Approaching the starting line - how cool is it that he got his own bib number and everything??


Toddler mayhem! This was before he looked back to check out the field of competition and took a nose dive on the track.


Showing off his hard-earned medal. He always wants to have it with him.



After Charlie's race, we went home for our big carb dinner - pasta with chicken. Then it was up bring and early to make it to the starting line for my own race - my first half marathon. The anxiety was running high, thanks to the reputation of the course - the 15K is infamous for the constant elevation change, and the half marathon they added this year included all of that course and more - two trips across the Cincinnati river. Those bridges are killer, and I know that thanks to my Pig training.



I decided to run with the 9:45 pace group, which would give me a finishing time of about 2:07, a few minutes under my 2:10 goal. It felt slow, but I forced myself to stick with them because I just knew that the course was going to be a killer and I didn't want to start out too strong and then falter at the end. I lost them somewhere around mile 6 - just kept running and didn't look back. And it felt good. I ended up finishing in 2:02 (9:20/mile) - two minutes slower than my super unrealistic "someday it would be nice" goal of sub-2 hours. I feel like I could have done better - if I hadn't started out so slow, I could have made up those two minutes somewhere along the way. There's always next year!

Post Heart Half Marathon. Don't I just look thrilled to be standing out in the rain?


The runners posing with their medals.


26.2 up next - bring on the Flying Pig!

Running Randoms

I'm running my first Half Marathon on Sunday! It's for the American Heart Association. I'm not so worried about the distance, since I've already run 13.1+ miles on four separate occasions. I'm more worried about the hills - there isn't a flat spot on the course.

Toddler Charlie will also be making his running debut this weekend - he's going to do the Kids Fun Run tomorrow afternoon. He's very excited about "racing like mom" :)

HUGE, HUGE THANKS to everyone who has supported Team Rachel - I'm 2/3 of the way to my goal. Poor girl can't catch a break - she's on day 6 of chemo and her grandfather just passed away over the weekend. Please keep her in your thoughts.

44 days until the Flying Pig Marathon! I'm super excited, but I'm also sad because my running buddy is no longer able to train with me due to an injury. I know she's disappointed by the way things are turning out, but she's managing to keep a shockingly bright disposition about it. Miss you!

Flying Pig Training - Update

I've been trying not to let this turn into a running blog, so I haven't posted all that much about my Flying Pig training. I thought I deserved an update and brag session right about now.

I ran over 100 miles in January. 101.8 according to Daily Mile, but I ran two other days in January before I started using their program. Of course, I didn't write it down, so we'll just call it over 100.

Got some new shoes after my first long run when I realized that a proper pair of running shoes was pretty much a necessity.



I'm able to run at a much faster pace than I was anticipating. On short runs I can run 9:30ish miles with no problems at all. Sometimes, I can even run a sub-9:00, which is exciting. Given that, I'm still of the mindset that "slow and steady wins the race," so my goal for the actual marathon is a nice, consistent, comfortable 10:30, which translates to about 4.5 hours. I don't like running faster, I like running longer.

On Saturday, I ran my longest run ever, with the help of my running buddy. We ran 12.64 miles. Sure, sure, we only got that extra .64 because we made a wrong turn, but we still did it. That's a half mile short of a half marathon, or just about five more minutes of running.

I decided that I'm going to run the Heart Half Marathon in March. I'd like to have an actual race behind me before going into the Pig. That way I'll know what to expect.

I'm excited!