Half Marathon High

I am still on a high from the AFC half marathon I ran yesterday in San Diego.  It was the best race ever.  I spent many miles smiling my way through, keeping a pace that I thought was far out of my reach.

This was my second half marathon ever, and I beat my last time by about fourteen minutes!  

In 2008, I ran the AFC Half Marathon in 2:09:35 (9:54 per mile pace).

My goals for this race were:

#1) Break 2:05 (9:30ish per mile pace). 

#2) If goal number one didn't work out, then beat my old time.

#3) If goal number two didn't work out, then at least not walk at all.

I by far shattered all my goals with a final time of 1:55:39 (8:50 per mile pace).  I never thought that I would even be able to break two hours in this half, and I did!  I am so happy. My months of training really paid off.

My parents, who are the best parents in the whole entire world, drove down to cheer us on, and we were able to see them at three different places on the course, in addition to the finish line.

Matt and I before the race, freezing at Cabrillo National Monument in Point Loma.

The crowd before the race.  It's a big one.

Here are some action shots during the race, courtesy of my parents on the sidelines.

The crowd of runners- where is Matt and Brooke?

 Here is Matt, so fast that he is blurry in the picture.

Here is Brooke, looking weird in front of the camera as usual.  I was blowing a kiss to my parents. :)

There I go running.

Look at all those runners.

Next stop, here I am still running and smiling.

And, there I go.

Matt waves to the camera.

The finish line, such a happy thing to see after 13.1 miles.

Our good friend Luke came out to support us and ran the last three miles with Matt and the last two hundred yards with me.  It was so nice to have him there.  Matt and Luke after crossing the finish line.

Brooke crossing the finish line (with Luke).

Here I am at the finish looking at my stop watch, a happy and exhausted little runner.

Here I am, mostly exhausted at the finish.

We made it!  I was so proud of Matt for running his first half marathon.  His time was 1:50:05 (8:24 per mile pace).

My biggest fans.

The celebratory beer afterward.

Thinking back on this race really brings tears to my eyes, as lame and cheesy as that sounds. There are so many times throughout training where I thought, why am I doing this to myself, even though there were also times where I was so happy to be alive and running.  And all the anticipation of race day can be overwhelming and scary.  But in the end, it was all so worth it and the race just made me love running and training even more.  Which is a good thing, because now we have a marathon in 61 days.