One's On The Way: Kentucky Derby Festival Mini Marathon 2011

(April 30, 2011)

13.1 miles - sound like a lot? Well, it IS! A few months ago I am on the phone with my [super-athlete] brother, Lewis, when he tells me "By the way, I want us to sign up and run a half-marathon in April." I know that doesn't sound extremely convincing, but because a longer-distance race was on my mental list of eventual goals, I felt like I couldn't refuse. Might as well get it over with, right?! So I nervously accepted the challenge and began the necessary training to reach this elusive goal. I even took seriously the consideration of changing the way I eat in order to improve my performance and have since developed a whole new outlook on the way I feed my family! The efforts of my 10+ weeks of training came to fruition this past Saturday when I crossed the finish line of my first-ever half-marathon. Although Lewis was supposed to run the race with me, a bike-wreck-injury of sorts (he hit a dog while out cycling and injured his hip) kept him from being able to do so. This was actually not an issue for me because I knew he would push me hard and now that pressure was off! Ha! I must say I was pretty scared and still couldn't believe I was even doing this right up to the starting line. I hadn't felt very confident in my improvement throughout my training and was concerned that I could even finish without walking! During registration, they ask you to put down your expected finish time so that you can start in a "pace-group" that will finish in about that time. I honestly guessed an accurate time for me would be definitely over 3 hours and so I put down 3:15. Lewis said he expected I could do it in more like 2:30 and I thought he was crazy! Well, what he always tells me about your race performance being nothing like your training performance was definitely true for me this time around. I finished the race in 2:17:44 and could NOT believe how good I felt the entire time and how much I enjoyed it. The course was not hilly/difficult at all which was great - I needed that for my first! There were 15,000 people that ran this race so it was pretty neat to be surrounded by that many other runners! Lots of encouragers/spectators along the way sure doesn't hurt either! I am excited to say I've checked that goal off my list and I look forward to various other races/events in the future! Just waiting on bro to get me a bike so I can do my first triathlon! WAHOO!

Putting on my bib number