My First Half Marathon

Leading the race at the start was Stace Holcomb, a 7-year-old first grader at Threadgill Elementary who attended UCP from three months to age 3.

Well it’s in the books; I did my first half marathon yesterday. I ran the Life Without Limits ½ Marathon in Florence Al. My overall time was 2:04:27 for a 9:30 pace. It was a great experience. I’ll try to carry you through it now starting at the night before. I slept real good I was afraid I’d not be able to sleep, but I did. I got up at 4:30 I wanted to leave the house by 5:15 as it was around an hour and half drive from my house to Florence. I had two pieces of light wheat toast for breakfast and water. On the drive up it rained off and on us I figured it might rain during the race, actually that was the forecast. We got there around 6:45 which was good as I can’t stand too late or rushed so no stress with that. Went and got my race packet got stretched out and we walked around a little bit. It was a little cool 51 at the race start and cloudy, so it was actually a great day to run and it only warmed up a couple of degrees during the race. The start was very well organized, they had signs for your projected pace so that helped in getting lined up and seemed to really help as the race got going there wasn’t a lot of folks passing. As I was lined up waiting on the start I couldn’t help but take a quick look back in mind over the last year. It is amazing, it really comes down to discipline if you really want something and set your mind to it you can do it. I can’t lie I started to get emotionally, so I stopped thinking about it. The race start was easy and slow, but that is ok that what I wanted to feel was the start and how I needed to do and to not panic that it would be to slow, it seemed real slow, but the first mile was a 9:49 so it was actually 11 seconds faster than my goal pace. The first few miles there was a lot of conversation between the runners it was neat ease drop on some of it. On the Wilson dam bridge I passed the stroller that had the young man with the disability that was representing the run, I waved at him and he smiled real big it’s a moment I will remember for a long time; I know this is not manly but he was precious. My left knee felt a little funny at the start, then I had a little twinge in my hip around mile tree, but they both left and guess I was just my body letting me know I was alive. After about mile four or five the conversations died down I guess everyone was starting to get tired or just settling into their running. I took my first water at mile 5 then about every two miles after that. I felt real good at the half way point, at about mile 9 I started to feel tired, but a gu gave me a little energy. Between mile 10 and 12 we crossed a long bridge that was kind of neat crossing it. I started to try and think about some of my past leading up to this, but I started to slow down, I’m not blaming it all on this I was tried at this point, I guess when I let my mind wonder I slowed down some. On the last mile or so it was slightly up hill, but not too bad. I was very tired then, but there were some groups cheering us on, some cheerleader squads and others. To those folks I say thank you, you may not really realize, but your cheering does really help it gave me a boost, a boost I needed very badly. I finished strong and felt good, with our chips they were able to call out our names as finished that was cool. It was real nice to have Jenny and Summer there smiling real big as I finished. The ride home was a little tough, my legs and but were real tight and I couldn’t get real comfortable I had to keep moving around the best I could. I’m not that sore today, which is good because tomorrow it’s back to training for the marathon! This race was all that I could have imagined it to be, the weather was great, I beat my projected time by almost 7 minutes, I had Jenny and Summer there with me and I felt good and strong on the run. Man I’m doing this today and not tomorrow. Well tomorrow it’s back to the training after a day of rest today. I promise to try and blog more this next month leading up to the marathon. Today not Tomorrow!