So, I'm back. I'm tired. I'm sore. But I'm back.
The Hunstvillle Half is a double loop half-marathon. It's sponsored by the Seven Hills Running Club, because, well, the course has seven hills. It starts off with a big hill and ends with a big hill and there are five smaller hills in between. We run around the campus of Sam Houston State and around the prison in Huntsville (right outside the wall, lol, and my dh didn't believe me so I took him over there after the race to show him). Anyway, I ran the race with three guys from our ward and with my friend Celeste, who used to be in our ward but moved.
So I train at sea-level and on flats. I haven't run on hills for at least a month. I took off towards the front of the pack and felt good. I was the third girl for most of the race. For a few minutes around mile 9, I came ahead and was second, but that girl got ahead of me again. I felt really good until about mile 10, when my early quickness caught up with me. At that point, I started walking through water stations and walking towards the top of the hills. I was dying. Girl two passed me. Girl three passed me. Girl four passed me. I knew I had to maintain my pace after that if I wanted to finish in the top five. An experienced guy took pity on me and coached me through the last mile. It was a killer, but I finished in 1:39.40). I was the fifth place girl overall and came in first in my age group. The first place girl was about 3 1/2 minutes ahead of me and the other three came in close together, all about a minute ahead of me. I was second out of the five people in our running group (I beat the stake pres, lol).
It was a really exciitng race for me because Eddie and the kids were there at the finish line (for the first time!). We all went to Culver's afterwards for our greasy burger and ice cream fix and we just got home. I'm feeling pretty good about the whole thing, but sort of nervous about doing twice as much running for my marathon in a couple of months. At least the marathon is flat. I think I could have kept going if it hadn't been for all of the hills.
The Hunstvillle Half is a double loop half-marathon. It's sponsored by the Seven Hills Running Club, because, well, the course has seven hills. It starts off with a big hill and ends with a big hill and there are five smaller hills in between. We run around the campus of Sam Houston State and around the prison in Huntsville (right outside the wall, lol, and my dh didn't believe me so I took him over there after the race to show him). Anyway, I ran the race with three guys from our ward and with my friend Celeste, who used to be in our ward but moved.
So I train at sea-level and on flats. I haven't run on hills for at least a month. I took off towards the front of the pack and felt good. I was the third girl for most of the race. For a few minutes around mile 9, I came ahead and was second, but that girl got ahead of me again. I felt really good until about mile 10, when my early quickness caught up with me. At that point, I started walking through water stations and walking towards the top of the hills. I was dying. Girl two passed me. Girl three passed me. Girl four passed me. I knew I had to maintain my pace after that if I wanted to finish in the top five. An experienced guy took pity on me and coached me through the last mile. It was a killer, but I finished in 1:39.40). I was the fifth place girl overall and came in first in my age group. The first place girl was about 3 1/2 minutes ahead of me and the other three came in close together, all about a minute ahead of me. I was second out of the five people in our running group (I beat the stake pres, lol).
It was a really exciitng race for me because Eddie and the kids were there at the finish line (for the first time!). We all went to Culver's afterwards for our greasy burger and ice cream fix and we just got home. I'm feeling pretty good about the whole thing, but sort of nervous about doing twice as much running for my marathon in a couple of months. At least the marathon is flat. I think I could have kept going if it hadn't been for all of the hills.
7 comments:
I can't even imagine running in a marathon. Good for you!
Woo! Go you!
I really don't know how you could run a double loop. I am impressed. I can't even do a double loop when it's six miles. I'm kind of a snob, I guess.
Yeah for you!! And Eddie thinks he can smoke you in a 5k because....???
Awesome, Shelah!!!!!
that is just awesome. i can't even run a 5K. what are you going to do next????
Thanks everyone! I'm doing a 5K on the 27th, Terina. Chloe, you have much better running options than we do here-- more than 90% of the distance races are on Sunday, so we take what we can get, lol. There was a BYU alum who came down from Dallas to run this race because it's just so hard to find non-Sunday races around here. My marathon is, in fact, a quadruple loop.
If I weren't such a goody-goody, I could run the Houston marathon two weeks later. It's supposed to be a great course. But oh well, I figure that we won't be in Texas forever.
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