My first 1/2 Marathon!!

On April 26th I ran my first 1/2 marathon... 13.1 miles in the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon!!  It was such a neat experience and I can't wait to do it again next year!!

Before January I hadn't ever run more than a 5Km (3.1 miles)... but in January I started training with a group of girls at work and we would run together during the week over our lunch hour and then get together every Saturday or Sunday morning and do longer runs.  Our longest training run was 11 miles.  All of our training runs were in colder weather (anywhere from 30 degrees up to 55 degrees or so)... but the day of the 1/2 marathon it was already 70 degrees when it started at 6:30 in the morning, about 80 % humidity, and 23 mph winds!  It was quite rough... but I ran the entire 13.1 miles with my friend Nikki and we actually did really well for it being both of our first times to run the 1/2.  I beat my goal time by a few minutes so I was pleased.

Here are some pictures from the weekend:

We left town on Saturday morning and headed to OKC... we went to the marathon expo when we got there to get our race packets.  Next we headed to lunch a Olive Garden to load up on carbs before the race.

Me - Skylar - Kyla - Nikki - Misty - Shauna

After lunch we headed to the mall for some shopping.  After we were done shopping we went to the little massage people that are in the middle of the mall and got massages :-)  We'd never done it before but thought it would be a fun way to relax a little before the race.  It was actually a great (but too short) massage and we had fun doing it!

Shauna getting her massage!

The 6 of us ordered matching shirts for the race... too bad they were long sleeve and it was so hot!  So 4 of us ended up running in our short sleeved pink shirts!

Kyla - Skylar - Me - Shauna - Nikki - Misty

 

This was towards the beginning of the race (none of us are in this pic).  There were over 20,000 people there so for the first 6 miles or so it was running like this!  It was insane the number of people... but it was also so cool the number of supporters that were along the entire 13.1 miles cheering everyone on!

Nikki and I at about mile 9 or 10! 

This was one of the hardest parts of the race because we were against the wind and going slightly up hill for a few miles! I was soooo glad that the two of us ran together because I probably would have walked some if she wasn't there with me... we each got extra motivated at different times so we were able to make each other run the whole time!

Me and Nikki just about to the finish line! The last few blocks were awesome... there were SO MANY people lining the streets and in bleachers cheering everyone on... my friend Sara that lives in the city was so sweet and came out to the finish line and cheered my on just before I crossed the line... it was so motivating to see someone I knew!! (Thanks Sara!!!!)  The whole thing was such a neat experience! I'm really glad I did it!

Since I live in a semi-small town without a lot of attractions we joke that we have to take up  running to keep ourselves entertained :-)  Aside from the 6 of us that trained together we had several other friends from work that ran it, too.  And congrats to my friend Jennifer who ran the full marathon!! She did awesome!