I ran my third half marathon with my sister Elisa on Sunday. It was fun to run Hutchinson's first half marathon, Run For the Rocks. I was so excited to get back into training once I found some bands that helped with my knee pain. I signed up for this race as soon as they announced it, so I would have a goal for training and ended up being the second person to sign up! My training went well enough that I was pretty nervous for the race because I really wanted to reach a new PR for myself.
We always try to not start out too fast, but that is really hard to do in a race. Our first mile was too fast and I was feeling like I was pushing myself just a little too much by mile 7. I told Elisa that I would beat myself up if I kept her from getting a new PR, so to go ahead because I needed to slow down a little. She slowly took off and was out of sight only for a minute or two when I saw her running the wrong way towards me!!! She told me "I would beat myself up for not staying with you to cross the finish line and not another word about it!" Well I got a big lump in my throat and had to get my breathing back in check and off we went. And yes she is always that sweet! I know I would have struggled with motivation on my own so I’m so thankful she ran with me. It is amazing how different you feel training vs. race day.
My last half I struggled after mile 8 and walked/jogged the last 5. My finishing time was 2:23. So I knew that it would be totally reasonable to beat that goal I just wanted to really beat it! My goal was to try to stay ahead of the 2 hour pacer flag and just see how I did. Well, running is very mental and when that pacer passed me close to mile 6, I think I had to do a lot of positive thinking, quoting Scripture and my newest phrase “Thank you Jesus I feel great!” My friend Mandy and I used this a lot in training when we needed to refocus!
Greg was on duty so he got permission to take the fire truck to watch us at one of the intersections. As we were within a few blocks of them we heard their sirens start and they were off to a call. That bummed me out but he was able to get to another location and cheer us on later. My mom and Elisa's husband and all of our kids were cheering us on at several different locations. That was so nice to have, there is just something motivating about being cheered on. My mom even recruited others to cheer us on also! I know she would have loved to be running right along side us!
As we came within a half mile of finishing Elisa told me we needed to try to beat 2:05 and we didn't have much time to do that so I picked it up the best I could and together we crossed that finish line at 2:04.59! I had such a great time and hope to run many more.
Nice relaxing massage afterwards! 
