On April 5, I completed my fourth half marathon and I do have to say it has been the best one yet. Yes I beat my best time by 15 minutes but that is just icing on the cake. I believe that I was more prepared this half than I was for the previous ones. I went in with the mindset that is going to finish and it didn't matter what my time was. I also got a Garmin so I no longer hear my splits while listening to my music. That helped out a lot.
So at the start of the race, I almost took off too fast and knew from experience that if I did that I would burn out too quickly and struggle to finish. Not to mention there is a massive hill on this course but I will get to that in a minute.
The organizers of the race were club officers of the running club that I'm part of. Everything was perfect. Right when I started to need something to drink there was a water stop and the best part was there was Gatorade at every water stop!!! I was tickled.
Anyway, around mile 4 is the start of the massive hill, which to the running community is known as Whiskey Hill. This is why at the beginning of the race I wanted to make sure to pace myself. I wanted to run as much of this hill as possible because it is a mile long. It gradually gets steeper and the last quarter of a mile is the steepest part.
I made it half way up the hill before I had to walk and that I was proud of. That was until I made the turn to go up the last quarter mile of the hill and realized they were playing Eye of the Tiger. This particular song is on my playlist to give me motivation and there was no way that I was going to spend all my energy to run up a quarter of a mile and not finish strong for the rest of the race.
After conquering Whiskey Hill, the rest of the race was went pretty smooth. I believe that driving the course the day before really helped. Especially when I was getting tired because I knew when I would be having a change of scenery and that was a relieve. I didn't feel like I was running forever like I was at three Middle Half in October.
I started to half done problems around mile 12 with some cramping and would run a little and then walk a little. I caught myself several times between miles 12 and 13 start to cry from pure joy. I couldn't help but keep looking at my watch and it was at this time that I knew that I was going to make a personal best and my kids were waiting for me at the finish line.
When I made the last turn toward the finish line, I took off in a full sprint because I realized that I was going to beat my half marathon personal best by 15 minutes!!! I was completely overwhelmed with emotions. I was exhausted, happy and felt very proud. I accomplished something that I never thought was possible and I'm also setting a good example for my children. So until next time.
