Guest Blogger: The Race!

Here's a first-hand look at the half marathon from our girl GaryAllanFan. I want to point out to you that the only other race she ever ran was a 1 miler last summer. If you go from 1 mile to 13.1, I'm not sure how you follow-up 13.1! I wouldn't be a bit surprised to hear GAF tell me she signed up for one of those 50-mile deals. If you have questions for her or Amber, post a comment here. 

First things first: We made it. We accomplished our goals.....the slow bus didn't pick us up, we finished and we didn't fall down. So mission accomplished! 

I think we may have started out a little too strong. We were pretty consistent for our first 6 miles. Then miles 6-9 were a little tougher. Once we hit mile 9, I felt like I was going to die. I got a charlie horse in my left calf and it wouldn't go away. Amber was having trouble with her arches. So needless to say ... we ended up doing more walking than we had planned on. The last 4 miles were tough. They seemed to drag on forever. I had an upset stomach (after downing supplements) and was exhausted. However, we kept going. Once we were on the final stretch and we saw our support team ... Roger, Teri, Tammy, Alysia and Amanda ... we got a little boost of energy to run across the finish line.

It really took every once of energy that I had to finish. It was TOUGH. But I am proud to say we finished. And we are going to do another. We're tentatively thinking Nashville next year. And next year we'll be stronger, faster and run more than we did this year. I'm up for the challenge and looking forward to becoming a better runner.

Next goal......finish a 5K and run the whole thing. No run/walk intervals....run it and hopefully in 36 minutes. I've got my 5K training plan back out and will start that in the next couple of days. Giving my body a little bit of a rest and then I'll be back at it.

I didn't get as emotional at the finish line as I thought I would. I think I was too exhausted. And I'm still not quite sure it has sunk in yet.....never in a million years did I think I'd be doing a half marathon. BUT WE DID!!! Thanks for being my running partner Amber!

How cool is that? Also keep in mind that while these ladies trained in the cold, early morning (dark) hours in Wisconsin, this race was in Sarasota. So they had to figure out how to hydrate and feed their bodies in a different way, too. For more information on the run-walk training plan, visit here: http://www.jeffgalloway.com/index.html