DONE friends, DONE.

This past weekend was the Charlottesville Marathon/Half Marathon/8K/Kids Mile in the downtown area of Charlottesville, Virginia.  My running partner and I have been training for about 4 months for the Half Marathon, which is 13.1 miles of rolling Charlottesville terrain.

Friday I was lucky enough to have work close early for Easter weekend (3pm), so we jumped in my car and made the 3 hour trek to Charlottesville.  We picked up our packets and checked in to the Sleep Inn & Suites Monticello, which was about 1.5 miles from the race start.

Mom had made us a delicious spaghetti bake, so we ate well the night before!

After dinner, we collected all of our supplements for the race and hit the hay at 9pm.

The race started at 6:30am, so we woke up at 4:30, took showers, and headed to the Arena to start mentally preparing for the journey that was to come!

The weather was COLD when we started.  I was wearing shorts with tall socks and a running tank top, so I ended up adding my lightweight running jacket, gloves, and headband to the outfit.  My running partner and I started the first two miles together, and then he took off to try and beat my brother’s time 🙂

At about mile 2.5, I developed a horrible stitch in my right side, which was really frustrating considering I had never gotten one in all the training I had been doing.  It lasted until about mile 5, so I had to compensate for the pain and run slower, which definitely impacted my overall time.  At mile 3 there was a water/gatorade/orange stop, so I grabbed all three to try and get the vitamins I was lacking for that side stitch.  At mile 5 I started seeing the really fast runners on their way back (they were on mile 10 or so) and that gave me a little motivation to step it up.  At mile 6 there was a water/gatorade/orange/bathroom stop and then a HUGE hill, which was crazy difficult, and then mile 7 was the turn-around point, which felt AWESOME.

Team Noob-A-Roo Fan Club!

After the hill and before the turnaround I saw my running partner coming in the other direction, and we high-fived and cheered each other on, which was a little extra motivation!  Once I had reached mile 10, I started feeling just generally tired and really hungry, and the energy jelly beans I had been eating just weren’t cutting it.  There was another hydration stop, and it was mostly downhill or flat, so that was good.  At mile 11, I started coming down a hill and spotted my brother and two other friends cheering me on, so I picked it up again and ran out the last two miles.  It was also very cool seeing my running partner standing at the final turn before the finish line to cheer me on through the finish, and WOW that finish line felt SO GOOD.  I wanted to cry, mostly from being so tired but also because my knee was in ridiculous pain.  But, I had just finished my first ever half marathon, something I thought I could never accomplish.

And, since the race was being “live broadcasted” on the internet, my parents got to see me cross the finish line!!

My time wasn’t all that great, and I ended at about 2 hours and 23 minutes, which was about 700th out of 900 runners.  Really though, considering I have never been a ‘runner’ and this was my second race ever, I wasn’t too disappointed with the results!  AND, my knee held up for the most part, which was a HUGE relief.  I was worried it would start hurting like it had in our training, which caused debilitating pain that I couldn’t run on, but that never really happened until the last mile or so.

13.1 miles DONE!

Now I’m wondering… what’s next?!

Love,

Brittanie