June 13, 2010 pt 1

Finally. The day had arrived. Race day was here. I was nervous, but more of an excited nervous. I knew I could run the mileage and complete the race. Now doing it in a time that I saw fit, that was a different story. I had set my goal to be at 2.5hrs and would do my best.

Saturday night, we had a great team dinner with a ton of delicious food and amazing company. We all talked, calmed our nerves a bit and had a nice motivating speech from our team leader and a few others. But all I could think about the whole time was that I was going to run a freaking half marathon. This is not what I do. I do not run long distances. I drink. I socialize. Im a frakkin’ knitter for pete’s sake!

Sandy & I got home and got all our stuff ready for the morning. Laid out our outfits, ok, I laid out mine ..he threw his together and probably threw it on the floor. I put my number on my race belt (no pins in my shirt!) and finally was able to calm down enough to sit and slow down so I’d be able to sleep! And sleep I did! It was probably one of the best nights sleep I had, all the way til 4am, because I set my alarm clock wrong, and it went off an hour earlier. WHOOPS. 5am.. we were up and starting the process to get going. Waking up the M’s. Deep breaths and we were on our way. Our fantastic friends watched the M’s for us and would be waiting for us at the finish line. This soothed my soul, since it is a very rare occasion that I am away from them.. but I knew they were in good hands and I had nothing to worry about. Steph gave me an awesome LIFE IS GOOD hat with running sneaks and the BEST card.. this gave me even more confidence to do what I was about to do.

Sandy & I were off. We made our way down to the Y. The team all started to arrive . everyone stretching, laughing, being nervous and it was time to make our way down to the starting line. We had time to wait in line FOREVER for the bathroom and run to the starting line. 1523 runners. I was one of them. I was getting ready to run 13.1 miles. I had my training partner Carmen, from day 1 by my side. I smooched my hubs and wished him a good race and I’d see him at the finish line. I wished my teammates good luck and WE WERE OFF!

to be continued ….