Sunday, May 06, 2007

Race Day

This is the medal that all of the finisher received. I must say that I am still wearing it. I earned it baby!
You can barely see me in this photo. My shirt is that little white things just off of the lady in pink shoulder. I had been by her during most of the race and of course I had to past her and cross the timing mats before her.
My daughter took this photo in front of the wall that we are taking the wall paper off of. It looks pretty good. I am not wearing a stitch a make up and I am a little tried today so my photo is not glamorous. But then running is not a glamorous sport. At least I crossed the finish line strong and I did not puke. My husband had taken a picture of me before I left the house at 5:45 AM, but they did not turn out. Sorry.

Some of you may know that over the past three or so months I have been training to run in my first half marathon. For those of you that do not know how far a half marathon is, it is 13.1 miles. Today I can proudly say that I ran 13.1 miles in 2 hours 30 minutes and 51 seconds. We had a little timing chip that we had to tie to our shoes. That way your time waiting to cross the starting line does not count. There were about 5200 participating in the half and full marathon together. My husband took the above photo of me. I am the one in the white jersey with my knee up in front of the army truck. He does not claim to be a photographer so it is a little blurry. I was able to make a good sprint to end, if you can call it a sprint. I must have pasted about 20 or more people in the last 1/2 a mile. At that point you do not have a far to go at all and the fast you run the less you feel your legs. I will not tell you how I feel now but it was worth it. It was worth every ache and pain to be able to say that I had the guts to try. As we began the race my heart was pounding from the excitement from the crowd. I had never experienced anything like ever.

7 comments:

Nana Porcupine said...

GOOD JOB, we are very proud of you. You look very nice after running 2 1/2 hr. I like the pictures too.

Kim said...

Congratulations on accomplishing such a feat! Since I get tired after walking only 1.5 miles I am in awe.

Marie N. said...

Amazing! It looks a little overcast in the photos, I imagine that is a good thing.

Running was never for me. Hopefully this summer we can begin family bike rides together (youngest started on training wheels a few weeks ago). Eventually I'll be able to leave the kids home and walk by myself, or take turns bringing one child along and leave the other home to enjoy some solitude.

For now I use a treadmill.

Barb the Evil Genius said...

Wow, that's great! I'm impressed!

Tourangeau said...

Charity, Congrats on completing the half marathon! I could never ever do that. I am trying to get Ryan to do a half as well since he has taken up running several miles often with our neighbor. Are you going to do a full? Are you still wearing your medal? We just got back from roller blading. It's 80 degrees here today!

The Hen (Charity) said...

My husband was such a wonderful helper during my training. He cooked many supper time meals so that I could get my miles in. Thank you for all of the congradulation.

Melissa Sutton said...

What an inspiration you are to me. When I don't Feel like running I start thinking of you(if you can do it so can I) then I force myself out the door often with my little dog by my side. (he searches for dead cats along the road) We run our 3 to 6 miles then I come home and collapse. I am so proud of you!