Mini Marathon Breakdown

Today me and 35,000 of my closest friends decided it was a great day for a 13.1 mile run. Just look at that sea of people!!!

I think that running a race is a lot like childbirth. The during part can be tiresome and painful but the reward at the end makes you forget all the bad stuff and you totally want to do it all over again.

I've had some time to rehydrate, refuel and rest. Here is the day as I saw it...

The Stats:
Overall Time - 1:55:10 (a PR-personal record-for me!)
Pace - 8:47
Overall Place - 5853/35,000
Gender Place - 1406 (not sure how many woman ran)

Our day started VERY early at 4:00am. We are lucky to have good friends who love to run too!

This is my friend Amanda. She walked with her dad in his very first Mini. This is her second year running the Mini and her third half-marathon. I'm pretty sure we've got her hooked. She's talking about doing back-to-back races next year...AND SHE TOTALLY CAN DO IT!!!

This is T. I got her hooked on running a few years ago. She is the best running partner ever. She'll get up at the crack of dawn to go running and when I say, "Let's do 10 miles today!" she'll say, "sure! She had a great PR today too and is going to start training for her first marathon very soon!

And here's my hubby, my one man pace team! He put aside his personal goals today to help me with mine. The ONLY drawback to having him pace me is that it is an easy run for him so most of the time he is skipping around me signing. If I wasn't almost out of breath I would have tackled him-especially on the track when he thought it was funny to sing Justin Beiber to me!

Miles 1-3: They were hard. Even with a corral near the front there were A LOT of people in front of us. You don't want to start slow and easy if you are going for time because you just have to make it up at the end. There is a reason why you see people running before the race. It is much easier to start when you are warmed up than going from 0-8mph at the start.

Miles 4-6: Probably the time when I was at my best. We had a good pace going and I was feeling strong.  My goal for the day was to come in under 2 hours. If I happened to get a PR-great...the hubby on the other hand had other plans. Apparently around mile 6 he decided that we were doing really well on time and we could come in under 1:55. It's a good thing he didn't share his "plan" with me because I don't know that I'd totally be onboard!

Miles 7-9: These miles contained my nemesis the Indianapolis 500 Speedway track. I think running on the track is one of the things people love about this race. I do not! It's on a slant and it seems to go on for FOREVER! I usually lose A LOT of time on the track but this year I had a runners mantra: I AM BETTER THAN THE TRACK! I think it helped. It didn't seem quite as bad and we didn't lose any time. I do however blame some hip pain on the track and it's slantiness!

Mile 10: I love mile 10. I'm off the track, I've hit and passed my "wall" and the end is near. I pepped up a bit and felt strong...until mile 11...

Mile 11: The pain, oh the pain! My hip really started hurting and I was worried we wouldn't make our time. Honestly I felt a little crushed. We had come so close and I truly thought we were done. I dug deep, focused forward and moved on. I just keep telling myself that there were just 2 more miles and I could die or fall apart at the end, but not now!

Mile 12: I don't remember much about mile 12. The pain had lessened and my focus was on the end. By now Nate had shared his goal for us and we were right on track to finish in under 1:55. I just kept on picturing that time in my mind...see the goal, be the goal. I know, TOTALLY cheesy but it really works.

Mile 13: They break the last mile down by 1/4 increments. It's almost discouraging to see the 3/4, 1/2 and 1/4 mile markers-it feels like the longest mile EVER! At the end I had enough in me to sprint across the finish line...totally shocked and proud of my time! We had beat my previous time and the rain! YAY for us!

We headed straight to the results tent to get our official time:

...and yes, the 7 seconds totally bothered me!!! (I'm sure those that know me are not surprised)

Next stop? The beer garden of course!

The past few races it's been our tradition to stop at Five Guys for post-race grub...so yummy!

Look at all that delicious food!

I'm pretty sure we set a PR for finishing!

Such a wonderful and L-O-N-G day! I feel so lucky that running is something that Nate and I can enjoy and share together!

Next race? The Geist half in 2 weeks! Looking forward to it-no goals or PRs in mind...just a beautiful run on the water with a friend!