Dear Diary, I finished. Love, Amy

We did it!

My sister flew into town to run the half marathon with me.  We woke up at 5:50am this morning and headed to the race.  Oh, yes, we did it!  There were several interesting things about this race... seeing a guy run without shoes (yes, socks only, people!), having it rain on us the ENTIRE race, and eating GU for the first time were just the highlights!

We had a goal to finish the race in under 3 hours, but we thought we'd like to start out doing 10-minute miles.  Unfortunately, we finished mile 1 at 11 minutes, and it was downhill from there!  It was misting the whole time, but it really started to downpour for a while around mile five and didn't let up for a couple of miles at least.  At about mile three, a woman collapsed and a medic was called.  Several people stopped to help her so Alli and I kept running.  I prayed for her as I ran and I wonder what happened to her.  When it started raining, I started feeling like the race would never end, especially because my feet got wet!  It was honestly miserable.  We kept at it, though, and I was amazed at the number of people lining the streets to cheer us on. 

Mile nine was the hardest for me... I was beginning to think that I was going to have to walk for a while when we passed a hydration station (it was the 4th or 5th up to that point) and someone handed me a package of Gu.  I've never heard of Gu, but apparently it's some kind of magic elixer because once I consumed that, I had a renewed energy that lasted through the end of the race, despite being miserably wet! 

I completed the half marathon in two hours and twenty-seven minutes.  My goal, as you recall, was never to run fast... just to finish the race!   Aaaaand, now that I'm finished, I am happy to announce that at this current moment, I do not ever plan to run a half marathon ever again!  It was a good experience (aside from the rain!), but I don't think it's "my thing."  I'm glad that it's finished!