One Down!

I can't believe we are nearing the end of March! I need to get calculating where I am against my Wellness Goals and post those first quarter results. But this weekend I knocked out one of the harder ones on the list, a half marathon.

A friend of mine asked me a long time ago if I wanted to do the race with her because it fell on her birthday this year. You know how things seem like such a great idea 6 months earlier and then not so much as it gets closer? Yep, this was one of those times, because a couple months later she found out she was pregnant! This put a bit of a wrinkle in the race plan. Not that we weren't going to do it, but her heart rate had to be constantly monitored and kept below a certain rate.

The cards were a bit stacked against us from the get go. The weather was very warm at race start and only went up from there:

The first half of the course is very hilly. I didn't notice how much last year and it gave me a greater appreciation for my time. We decided to keep it slow and steady to see if we could settle into a pace that would keep her heart rate at the right level. This went well until about mile 5. At that point, we had to pull back more and at the half way point go to walk/run. Thankfully the second half is flat, but combining the heat with the exertion from the first half it was hard to keep her heart rate within range.

We were far off normal pace for both of us and at times it was frustrating. The race felt long and the lack of rhythm was tough. But we finished and it's a great story (and accomplishment!) for her to tell her little one!

My husband said to me that's about 40-ish mins slower than normal, are you counting it? I'm sure I gave him a little itty bit of a stink eye and was a bit snarky, but it was after 13.1 miles!  I said, "See this medal? Yep, I'm counting it!" So one down with one more to complete this year to hit my 2012 goal.